By Chris Cosci

The Hostess baking company is getting ready to celebrate a major anniversary. Seventy-five years ago, they introduced the world to the first batch of Twinkies. In fact, those same Twinkies are still on store shelves today [insert rim shot]. Thank you - I'll be here all week.

Okay, Twinkies have developed the unfortunate reputation of being entirely artificial - synthetically designed to last until the end of time. Despite this reputation, Twinkies are still one of the most popular snack foods. They were created in 1930 by a Hostess bakery manager named Jimmy Dewar. Dewar noticed that the company had a collection of shortcake pans that were only used during the short, six-week strawberry season. Unable to bear seeing good bakeware go unused, Dewar decided to create a new snack that could be enjoyed year round.

Thus was born the Twinkie. In his original recipe, Dewar used a banana crème filling. During World War II, the filling was changed to a more generic vanilla flavor due to a shortage of bananas. Bananas must have stopped growing in protest of the war.

Today, Twinkies are still being enjoyed by people of all ages. So how does one go about celebrating 75 years of making crème-filled guilty pleasures? That question was answered by Mike Redd, the current Vice President of Cake Marketing at Hostess. Redd has one of those unusual job titles that sounds really important until you hear the full title. "Hey Mike, how are things going at work?" "Great - I was just made Vice President..." "Wow, that's terrific!" "...of cake marketing." "Oh... well, I guess that's still pretty good, right?"

As part of his vice presidential duties, Redd revealed one of the big plans for the anniversary celebration. He announced that the company is holding a contest to find the greatest recipes for serving Twinkies. You might be wondering how many different ways there could possibly be of preparing Twinkies. As it turns out, there are quite a lot. According to Redd, "bakers, homemakers and kids of all ages have been creating delectable desserts for decades using America's favorite snack cake." In fact, on Planet Twinkie (the official Web site for Twinkies), there are dozens of recipes for Twinkies as well as other Hostess products, such as Ding Dongs and Ho Hos.

Most of the recipes are for specialty cakes and pies. Many recipes add chocolate syrup, whipped topping and pudding to create desserts that would put even the healthiest person into a permanent state of sugar-shock. There are also some interesting twists on classic desserts, including a Twinkie version of smores and a tiramisu-inspired dessert called Twinkie-misu (even if I wanted to, I couldn't make something like that up).

Then there are those oddball recipes that sound uncomfortably disgusting until you look at the recipe. These include such fun concoctions as Twinkie Tacos, Twinkie Sushi and Twinkie Lasagna. Rest assured, none of these recipes seem to be as incredibly inedible as they sound.

While the Twinkie Tacos do get created in flour tortillas, the tortillas are filled with Twinkies, marshmallow topping and cinnamon. There's no ground beef or salsa. Similarly, you won't find any fish in the Twinkie Sushi. Instead, it's simply Twinkie pieces wrapped in dried fruit wraps and topped with fruity candies for coloring. And you can put the ricotta cheese and tomato sauce away. The Twinkie Lasagna is layered with tapioca pudding, marshmallow topping and pineapple.

When the contest is over, 75 of the recipes will be selected for inclusion in the upcoming 75th anniversary Twinkie cookbook. Contest entries are still being accepted, and the recipe book should be published later this year. While many recipe ideas have already been posted on the Web site, there's still time to come up with something new. You can always try creating Twinkie Pizza, Twinkie Cordon Bleu or the new BLT - Bacon, Lettuce and Twinkie sandwich. I'll just settle for the original recipe: eat it right out of the package.