Today is National Cheese Pizza Day.

Ironically the Italians did not create the first pizza.  Instead it was large, round, flat bread topped with oil, herbs, spices and dates from the Greeks that started us off with one of our fast food favourites.  Over time it made it’s way towards Italy where plain, untopped flat breads called ‘pizzas’ were sold on the street and in markets to the poor because of their lack of expense to make and the fact that they were filing and delicious.

It wasn’t until Queen Margherita in the late 1800’s tried the bread and loved it did they start getting topped.  Pizza Margherita, a popular choice today, came about when Chef Rafaelle Esposito was charge by the Queen to make a selection of pizzas for her pleasure.  Showing his love for his country he recreated the colours of the national flag by baking a pizza topped with tomatoes (red), mozzarella (white) and basil (green) thus creating her namesake.

Throughout the country more toppings were discovered and tasted as well as techniques such as using a specially designed brick oven to cook them in.

It wasn’t until after WW2 that pizza made it’s way out of Italy and into the US, England, France and Spain.

Today an average of 23 pounds of pizza, per person, per year is consumed by Americans and Canadians with cheese and pepperoni being the topping of choice.

Since it’s creation, pizza now has many forms (calzones, thin crust), styles (ice cream pizzas, candy pizzas) and toppings (chicken and BBQ sauce).  Next to hamburgers it’s one of our favourite fast food choices.

Today is National Blueberry Popsicle Day.

Who would have figured that an accidental creation by an eleven-year-old boy would today be one of the most popular frozen treats?

It was in 1905 when Frank Epperson left a mixture of soda water powder and water, a popular drink in those days, overnight in the cold with a stick in it.  Little Frank had a cool surprise the next day to show his friends but it wasn’t till 1923 when he was an adult that it became a business venture.  Originally called the Epsicle, it was available in seven different fruit flavours.  Frank, realizing his success, changed the name to Popsicle, patented his inventions in 1924 and by 1928 he had sold more than 60 million of these ice pops.

There are currently 30 flavours creation available to date with the popular choice being orange and it is estimated that 3 million of these treats are sold every year.

Today is National Spumoni Day and Eat a Peach Day.

Spumoni is Italian ice cream molded into layers of different colours and flavours and usually contains candied fruit and nuts.  Typically it is a layer of chocolate ice cream, a fruit and nut layer, and then a  layer of pistachio ice cream. However any flavours can be used.

Today is National Soft Ice Cream Day.

What makes soft serve ice cream different than regular ice cream?

Soft serve ice cream has 3-6% milk and is produced at -4 degrees C.  Ice cream has 10-18% milk fat and is stored at -15 degrees C.  Soft serve is creamier, smoother and lighter in taste because air is introduced to the product at the time of freezing.

Today is National Root Beer Float Day.

Root beer has its origins in Colonial America when alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks called small beers with made from roots, bark and herbs. Some of the earlier ingredients used to make root beer were allspice, juniper, hops, dandelion root, vanilla beans, sarsaparilla, yellow dock, dog grass, molasses and licorice. Today many of those ingredients are still used.

Charles Hires, a pharmacist in Philadelphia, discovered a recipe while on his honeymoon that he originally turned into a tea, then later added carbonation and made it a refreshing soft drink. The Hires family began making and distributing bottled root beer in 1893.

Today is National Hot Fudge Sundae Day.

Burton “Burt” Baskin and Irvine “Irv” Robbins were brother in laws who had a vision about family, fun and old fashioned ice cream. In 1945 the pair each had their own individual ice cream shops;  Irv’s Snowbird Ice Cream and Burt’s Burton Ice Cream Shop, and by 1948 they had 6 stores between them.  This is where the concept of Baskin-Robbins eventually grew.  In 1953 their dropped their separate names and became one.

The 31 logo was developed to represent the idea of a different flavour for every day of the month.

Since 1945 over 1000 unique flavours have been created with Pralines ‘n Cream and Chocolate Mint being the top sellers.  Baskin-Robbins is visited each year by over 300 million ice cream lovers.

Today is National Lollipop Day.

Unfortunately there is little information about when the hard candy on a stick was first created. Even the automation of processing this sweet treat has some controversy with two different companies staking claim to it’s invention.
Samuel Born, a Russian Immigrant in San Francisco developed a machine in 1916 that mechanically inserted the sticks into the lollipops. On the other side of the country in 1908 The Racine Confectioner’s Machinery Company developed a machine that could produce up to 40 lollipops a minute.
While the history is a bit sketchy, what’s important that it was invented at all.

Today is National Tapioca Day.

First harvested by the Mayans Tapioca is derived from the root starch of the Cassava or Yucca plant. It can be used to sweeten food, thicken soups, as a laundry starch, bread flour and most commonly to make pudding.

Making your own tapioca from the roots of cassava at home can be quite dangerous as it contains cyanide that has to be carefully extracted.

Today is National Taffy Day.

Back in the 1800’s taffy was originally called treacle and was made into hard cakes. By 1840 it became a speciality item and evolved into a famous sweet thanks to the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Instead of it being offered as a large cake, small pieces of taffy started being individually wrapped and sold in bags.
It was thanks to one vendor who tongue-in-cheek sold a bag right after the crashing waves of a bad storm damaged his store that it name changed to salt water taffy.
The main ingredient in taffy is sugar, water and corn syrup and can come in a large variety of flavours.

Today is National Pretzel Day.

It was in 610 AD when European monks began forming scraps of dough into the shape of a child’s arm folded in prayer with the three gaps or holes representing the Christian trinity.  This “reward” was given to the children who memorized their verses and prayers was named Pretiola.

As the tradition travelled across Europe it became more commonly known as the Bretzel or Pretzel.  It was the late 17th century in Pennsylvania when by accident the pretzels were left in the oven and baked too long that the dry crunchy pretzel we know today was created.  Pretzels are the second most popular snack purchased after potato chips. 

Yummy Chocolate Covered Pretzels