Does your Instagram feed ever get flooded with “National Hot Dog or Warm Apple Pie Day?” Just recently I’ve seen National Watermelon Day, National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, and National Oyster Day—let us not forget that August 6th is National Rootbeer Float Day.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take any day to celebrate food, but the amount of random food holidays on the calendar is overwhelming. Seriously, how does one properly celebrate National Chop Suey Day on August 29th? Who the heck comes up with these holidays… and better yet, how?
Bon Appetit explains, through example of National Meatball Day, how exactly Americans have come to celebrate “National” holidays based on food every day:
“How did we get a National Meatball Day–from a proclamation by the President or other government office? Unlikely. A search through the archive of presidential proclamations turns up nothing about meatballs. There is no archive of proclamations at the USDA, but our best guess is that it wouldn’t be there, either. The first reference to March 9 as National Meatball Day appears to be in 2010 on Pitch.com, a website for event listings and local news in Kansas City. It gained momentum in March 2011 following a press release issued by NYC-based marketing company, The Door, on behalf of its client, Mama Mancini’s, which makes gourmet prepared meatballs and “Sunday sauce.” Mama Mancini’s was offering all kinds of meatball freebies in honor of the holiday, and they garnered a fair amount of media attention. By March 2012, we all acted as if were a veritable haligdaeg.”
Well, there we have it—food holidays are created by the people, for the people. According to the New York Times, there are 175 “official food holidays”, as recognized by brands and consumers alike. Keep your eye out for how full June 18th is. It holds the most holidays in one day in a calendar year!
