National Food Holidays

If you have been a subscriber or even a casual reader of Vero Beach Magazine for any length of time, you might have wondered how we come up with feature ideas each month. Well, once or twice a year, editors and writers put their heads together and endeavor to come up with timely topics that we hope will inform, engage and entertain you, the reader.

So, knowing that the next best thing to eating food is talking about it, I researched food holidays around the world to garner inspiration for our April issue. I discovered a list of the countries of the world and the days they had designated for celebrating their national dishes. Think of Austria’s wiener schnitzel, Hungary’s goulash or Ireland’s Irish stew. 

While most of these countries take a day or two out of the year to honor their culinary masterpieces with bakeoffs and garden fetes, the list is short and often accompanied by helpful recipes for you to try at home. For example, Japan has an Ichi-go Day or National Strawberry Day on Jan. 5 with berry dishes galore. Sweden has three such days, including National Mud Cake Day on Nov. 7. This month Italy will celebrate — what else — National Espresso Day on April 17, while the United Kingdom stretches its merriment to six days of revelry. A hop across the pond this month might yield discounts on the indubitably British ritual of taking an afternoon cream tea in honor of National Tea Day on April 21. Turkmenistan, on the other hand, has a National Melon Day in August. Who even knew Turkmenistan grew melons?