While Little Debbie makes many different products, some of them unique, while some generic restatements of common snack themes, I think that if any product could be considered the Flagship product of the Little Debbie line, it would be the Nutty Bars. The Swiss Rolls are just an off-brand twinkie, the Star Crunch seems to have been invented as an experiment to see just how arduous the cannabinoid-induced munchies can make someone, but the Nutty Bars are a symmetric balance of so many different factors of snackingness. Also, while the concept would be easily plagiarized, I can't say that I have ever seen even an attempt at a Nutty Bar knock-off.
The concept behind the Nutty Bar is simple, but involuted within that simplicity. Layers of wafer and peanut butter-flavored material are stacked, and then the whole thing is covered with a thin layer of chocolate-flavored material. For some reason that some Little Debbie executive must have decided on, perhaps with in-depth focus group testing and extensive cost-benefit analysis, the wafers have different patterns on them, including a small, diamond shaped pattern and a larger, square pattern. When peeled apart, a thin layer of diamond-formed peanut-butter compound peels off, slowly.
Which brings us to the great fun of the Little Debbie Nutty Bar, and why this hypothetical executive's decision to keep on making them with a variety of wafer-patterns is a wise decision. When I eat my Little Debbie Nutty Bars, I never eat them the same way twice. Luckily, they come in a pack of two, so I can have my snack cake and eat it too, as far as styles of consumption go. The first one I usually eat as if it is a candy bar, crunching along into it in a linear, unimaginative fashion. The second, I usually peel, layer by layer. And this is where the diversity shown on the inside of the Little Debbie Nutty Bar pans out, as the different textures and patterns shown while it is being dissected give an additional fascination, beyond the pure culinary aspects of its consumption. That is why the Little Debbie Nutty Bars, seemingly a collection of about ten cents worth of flour, sugar, hydrogenated oils and peanut butter and chocolate byproducts, are a snack food way beyond the ken of what it seems to be.
Little Debby Nutty Bars are available at convenience stores for 75 cents a pack, and at grocery stores for a little over a dollar a box, the box containing six smaller cellophane wrapped packs.