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Style July 20, 2017
Just in case you need an excuse to buy cotton candy.
While most of us don’t need a special day to drink a margarita or eat a donut, these days do exist.
National food days dedicate each day to a certain food item, and it seems like more and more keep popping up every year. Although people probably don’t celebrate all of them, there’s a national food day on every single day of the year. Some days even have multiple foods attributed to them.
But how did this tradition even start?
According to Paste, holidays are decreed by a government official such as a mayor, governor or the president. But unlike holidays like Christmas and Memorial Day, food days are started by a marketing or PR department.
Yeah, some random guy made up National Grilled Cheese Day.
They usually start food holidays to serve as a marketing tactic. For example, the National Peanut Butter Board started Peanut Butter Day, Peanut Butter Cookie Day and Peanut Butter Fudge Day to promote their brand and product. Then, these departments use an association or lobby group to promote the food day.
Although many of these days are made up randomly, there are a few official national food days.
National Beer Day (April 7), celebrates the end of Prohibition. On the night before, people got in line to be able to legally buy alcohol at midnight. Donut Day (June1), on the other hand, began during the Great Depression to honor women who brought donuts from home to the soldiers on the front lines during WWI.
So although many national food days are created by PR companies or food bloggers, days such as National Beer Day and Donut Day have meaning. And they’re also good excuses to go out and buy a donut or a beer in the name of Prohibition and the Great Depression.
PR and marketing departments aren’t the only people who can try and create national food days. Anyone can, really. You know, you just have to know the right people in the government, but it’s possible.
For example, John Bryan Hopkins is a food writer and social media whiz who established Tater Tot Day. Hopkins is also the creator of Foodimentary.com, a website that’s the official guide to national food days. His site has been mentioned in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the Food Network.
According to TIME, he created a majority of the national food days just by filling it out on his calendar on his website. When he first started his website, 175 food-related days existed, and he just filled in the rest. Although his days are never decreed by a government official, people take his calendar as the official word on the matter since it has existed for so long.
And if you’re looking for an excuse to buy gummy worms and caviar, your chance is coming up this month.
Although national food days usually mean absolutely nothing, it’s still nice to have an excuse to go out and buy cotton candy.