My beloved fruit pie, how I love your creamy center...

Today, for lunch, I'm eating a cherry Hostess Fruit Pie. I have probably eaten no more than 10 of these in my whole life, mainly because I don't ever buy them in the store, but only get them out of vending machines.

I didn't feel like taking the time to go out into the world (aka downtown Cleveland) to scavenge for lunch today, so I decided to make some soup and went to Vend-o-land (as Depressionista calls it) in our lunchroom to get a diet Dr. Pepper. I peeked in the candy/chips vending machine to see if anything looked good, and there were my beloved Hostess fruit pies.

I figured, since I was drinking a diet Dr. P, that the sugar in the fruit pie would be OK. Since my choices today were cherry and chocolate (that is not fruit, Hostess!), I opted for cherry. The machine ate my first dollar, but since I was now on a mission, I went ahead and put in another dollar. $1.85 later, I held the waxy packaging of a tender, delicious fruit pie that has a shelf life longer than my life expectancy.

I'm eating it right now as I write this. It's really nothing like real pie, but there is something "magical" about it. The Hostess fruit pie website says, "However you serve them, they won't be around for long. No one can hold a Hostess Fruit Pie in their hands without making them disappear." Maybe that's why the fruit pie mascot is "Fruit Pie the Magician." I couldn't find "FPTM" on my package, and learned from Wikipedia (yes, this is important research) that FPTM began as a mascot in 1973 and was retired in 2006, which is probably the year I ate my last Hostess fruit pie.

The mascot's name was actually "Fruit Pie" - what lazy ad writer came up with that?? And, while many have shared their theories about what Fruit Pie was supposed to be, he was, in fact, an anthropomorphized fruit pie with a cape and hat.

I now have a new quest, a new reason for living: bringing back Fruit Pie the Magician. The fruit pie labels just aren't the same without him. There's even a site for saving Fruit Pie the Magician, complete with history and how you can get involved in this important, world-changing campaign: Save Fruit Pie the Magician

Fruit pies come in the following flavors:

• Apple (yum)
• Cherry (my personal favorite)
• Pineapple (huh? I've never seen one of those, but it sounds deeeeelicious!)
• Lemon (I like lemon, but this is just OK in my book)
• Blackberry (I don't like the little seeds...)
• Strawberry (see Blackberry...)
• French apple (I've never seen this kind)
• Blueberry (like 'em, but blueberries give me acid reflux)
• Peach (intriguing, but I wouldn't pick it over apple or cherry)
• Chocolate (looks absolutely disgusting and is also NOT a fruit!)

While I wasn't able to find any recipes using Hostess fruit pies, there certainly are plenty of recipes for the ubiquitous Twinkie. And, check this out: wedding cakes made with Hostess snack cakes.

A post for another time: the "barbie"-sized cakes that constitute a 100-calorie pack of Hostess cupcakes (don't let the ads fool you, these things are hilariously small!).