Under-Celebrated National Food Holidays You Haven’t Heard of

(Yet)

The official designation of national food holidays celebrated throughout the Internet seems to be a mystery and I’m getting to the bottom of it, eventually.

Who decides when it’s Hashtag National Hot Dog Day (Sept. 10th) or National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day (Sept. 16th)? What is the official process for certified designation? When were these holidays first celebrated and why? My rigorous research about the history and tradition of national food holidays leaves much to be desired (because there’s not a lot of information and frankly because I get so hungry that I give up.)

While I work on that, here is a list of my prospective under-celebrated National Food Holidays that I believe are truly iconic and have yet to be officially recognized, by whoever the officials are.

Mother-Of-Pearl Colored Slime Layer On The Ham Day

Douglas Adams once wrote, “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” He was right, lunchtime can happen anytime. Lunch meat, though, should be thrown out before you can see a shiny green layer on it. Except for June 1st, National Mother of Pearl Colored Slime Layer on the Ham Day, which also happens to be my birthday. To celebrate, I cover my cake with layers of iridescent deli meat as if it’s cake fondant, which let’s be honest, is also gross.

I’m not Rachel aka Ram Ham, and I don’t know her, but something tells me that we would get along like a like house on fire.

Mustard Water Day

Jean Naigeon of Dijon revolutionized the original mustard recipe by substituting verjuice (the sour juice of unripe grapes) for the vinegar traditionally used in the making of mustard. Why? We may never know. But his birthday seems like a good day to celebrate Mustard Water Day. Unfortunately, nobody knows when his birthday is so I’m just going to go with June 1st, which happens to be my birthday.

I fill this with water and squirt it into my mouth during SoulCyle™ (jk I don’t go to SoulCyle)

Mexican Leftovers That Contain Iceberg Lettuce Day

If ever there’s an iconic food that is rarely discussed it’s the lettuce-heavy last- night’s-leftovers-from-sit-down-Mexican-restaurants. This is what happens when you carry home a styrofoam box with half a wet burrito you couldn’t finish because you accepted three refills of hot salty chips before your meal so you took home the rest of your burrito to have, “Something to look forward to tomorrow.” It’s that wilted microwaved lettuce that smells like a soft garbage breeze in an alley on the first hot day of summer. Just because that lettuce has seen better days doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve its own day, which is to be celebrated on June 2nd, the day after my birthday dinner at a Mexican Restaurant.

You know you can smell this picture just by looking at it.

Freezing Cold Rock Hard Butter Packet Day

So Your Waiter Gave You a Packet of Freezing Cold Butter To Spread On Room Temperature Food, Now What?

Now it’s time to celebrate Freezing Cold Rock Hard Butter Packet Day! A holiday that you asked for so now you just have to make the best of it. Some National Freezing Cold Rock Hard Butter Packet Day celebrations include games like “Hands On a Hard Butter,” where everybody at your table has to keep one part of their body on your butter packet to warm it up.

cold butter: an indomitable condiment that will stop at nothing to ruin your toast/day

Half Of The Worst Flavor of Donut Left In The Box Day

It’s every office’s dangling carrot — a box of donuts on a Friday morning. Which means by early Friday afternoon you can celebrate this holiday. Half the worst flavor of donut can come in many varieties, including these:

“What kind of filling is in this? Oh, a gross one.”

“I just want to eat the center of the cinnamon bun so I’m going to pretend like I’m cutting in half, but its more like 3/4. Eff these people.”

“If the other half is still here when I come back in an hour I’ll eat the rest.” (Also known as, “If you love something, give it away, if comes back it was meant to be.”)

Supporters say that National Half Of The Worst Flavor of Donut Left In The Box Day should coincide with actual National Donut Day which is held every year on the first Friday in June, which happens to sometimes be my birthday.

Do you have any suggestions for your favorite food that should have a national holiday?! Well, join the club because I have no idea who’s in charge here and what we’re supposed to be celebrating. If you need me, I’ll be spreading cold butter on stale donuts while my leftovers are in the microwave.

Happy Food Holidays!

Alternate caption suggestion: This is what happens when someone brings in donuts and you work with many females who have traditionally been held to higher beauty standards which are actually not so much “standards,” as they are an unwinnable war on our bodies where we’re constantly reminded by captions like the one above that while we can’t eat too much we also shouldn’t eat too little so we’re forced to carry around plastic donut cutting knives in our purses for self defense. Is that too long for a caption?