National Clams on the Half Shell Day

March 31st is National Clams on the Half Shell Day in the United States.

Clams are a type of bivalve molluscs. There are many different varieties of calms, from practically microscopic to the 200 kilogram or more giant clam, and they can be found in both marine and in freshwater habitats. Not all clams are edible, or eaten as food.

In North America, the term "clam" is usually used to refer to one type known as the hard clam which is native to the eastern shores of the continent, although it can also be used for some other edible varieties.

These clams are popularly served "on the half shell" in restaurants and clam boards in coastal areas of New York, New Jersey and New England. The clams are opened up with the top shell removed and served raw. They are accompanied with cocktail sauce with horseradish and frequently lemon.

National Turkey Neck Soup Day

March 30th is National Turkey Neck Soup Day in the United States.

This is another dish that is just what it sounds like. It's soup made with turkey necks.

This is the sort of recipe that would have originally been created to use up every bit of a bird, so that there is no wastage. The turkey necks wouldn't have been eaten with the rest of the bird, and probably would have been removed before cooking it.

Nowadays, turkey's often come pre-dressed, so the turkey neck may not even be included. Consequently, the necks are often sold separately - you can buy packs of frozen turkey necks. This makes it a dish you choose to have, rather than a way of getting the last bit of food from the bird.

Like most soups, the necks would be placed in water, along with some other vegetables, and simmered. The meat would be removed from the bones when it is tender enough, and the bones removed.

National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day

National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day is on March 29th in the United States.

Lemon chiffon cake is a type of chiffon cake that has, not surprisingly, been flavoured with lemons.

Chiffon cake itself is a light cake - chiffon is a lightweight fabric - that can be made in different flavours. The base ingredients are baking powder, flour, eggs, vegetable oil and sugar. The vegetable oil is used instead of the butter used in other cakes, which means the texture of the cake is created by beating egg whites until they are stiff and folding them into the rest of the batter. This is a very moist cake.

Chiffon cake was first created in the 1920s - making it one of the more modern recipes - by Harry Baker, who kept the recipe secret for twenty years before selling it, to General Mills.

National Black Forest Cake Day

March 28th is National Black Forest Cake Day in the United States.

Black Forest cake, which is also known as Black Forest gâteau, is a cake that bears the name of the German Black Forest region, which is called Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte or "Black Forest cherry-torte." It is actually named after the cherry liqueur from that region.

This dessert is a layered chocolate cake. Between the layers are whipped cream and cherries. The cake is also decorated with yet more whipped cream, maraschino cherries and chocolate shavings. Sour cherries and the cherry liqueur kirsch are also optionally used, depending on the recipe used. The kirsch will be found in more traditional European recipes.

It is not known when this dessert originated, or even definitely where, but it seems to be quite a new dish. The earliest reference to it is in Berlin in the 1930s, although claims have been made making the dish older.

National Spanish Paella Day

National Spanish Paella Day is on March 27th in the United States.

It seems odd calling this "Spanish Paella" day as paella is a Spanish dish, so it wouldn't seem necessary to emphasise that fact.

Paella is a rich dish that is believed to have originated along the Mediterranean coast of Spain, particularly in the Valencia region, where rice became a staple foodstuff. The rice was then combined with other ingredients.

There are three main types of paella - Valencian, seafood and mixed, but there are many other types. Valencian paella is made from white rice, beans, seasoning (saffron being popular; this gives paella its distinctive colour), meat (usually rabbit or chicken), land snails and green vegetables.

Seafood paella has seafood instead of meat, and lacks the green vegetables and beans. Mixed paella combines ingredients from both. All are cooked in olive oil.

Even with these three basic recipes, they are often changes made to them. Land snails are unlikely to be found in Valencian paellas served in countries where snails are not regularly eaten for example.

National Nougat Day

National Nougat Day is on March 26th in the United States.

The name "nougat" refers to several related confections that are believed to have originated in Southern Europe, but has since become popular around the world. There are three main types of nougat, white, brown and Viennese or German.

The candies are made with roasted nuts - the most popular are macadamia, hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts and pistachios - whipped egg whites, sugar or honey (or both), and possibly with chopped candied fruit.

White nougat first appeared in Italy and is made with whipped egg whites and honey, and is the most common. Brown nougat lacks the egg whites. Viennese or German nougat is considered to be a chocolate and nut praline.

The nougat commonly called such in candy bars is not one of these types. Instead, it's a mixture of aerated sucrose and corn syrup, possibly with such as egg whites or gelatine. It's cheap to make and used as a filler.

National Lobster Newburg Day

National Lobster Newburg Day is on March 25th in the United States.

Lobster Newberg, or Lobster Newburg, was originally called Lobster à la Wenberg. It was created by a sea captain called Ben Wenberg in the late nineteenth century. The manager of the well know Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City, Charles Delmonico, added it to the restaurant menu after he was shown it. The dish was renamed after the two argued and it was removed from the menu. In order to bring it back to satisfy customers, it was now called Lobster à la Newberg - Newbery being an anagram of Wenberg.

The lobster is cooked with Cayenne pepper, sherry, eggs, cream and butter. A close relative of the dish is Lobster Thermidor, which appeared shortly afterwards. Another variant is Crab Meat Newburg.

National Chocolate-Covered Raisins Day

National Chocolate-Covered Raisins Day is on March 24 in the United States.

Chocolate-covered raisins are one of the standard foods that are covered in chocolate. Frequently sold as a vending product, they consist of a raisin covered in chocolate. The chocolate can be milk, dark or white, although milk chocolate is probably the most common..

It is not known precisely when or where the candy originated. It is possible that the original cultures of the Americas, having access to cacao beans, would have had something similar. The earliest probable reference to something like this is in Germany, as there is a German folk tale describing something similar.

Unlike most candies, the size of chocolate-covered raisins can vary quite a bit. This is due to the different sizes of the raisins themselves, which are whole when they are covered in chocolate.

National Chip & Dip Day

National Chip & Dip Day is on March 23rd in the United States.

Dipping one item of food into another item of food is hardly a new custom - people have been doing it in one form or another for centuries. The snack food known as chips & dips is a much newer item, though, at least partly because the "chips" themselves are a comparatively modern invention.

The chips in question may be corn chips or tortilla chips - not to be confused with the British chips which are known as french fries in the US. Chips & dips are a part of Tex-Mex cuisine.

Corn chips have the shape of a small scoop, making them ideal for scooping up dips. In the later part of the previous century, tortilla chips - also made of corn, and usually in triangles cut from tortillas and then deep fried, but cooked slightly differently to corn chips - started passing corn chips in popularity.

As well as a snack food at home, they can be found as an appetiser in restaurants. Some of the common dips include salsa, sour cream and chives, guacamole and chilli con queso.

National Celery Month

March is National Celery Month in the United States.

Celery is a plant that is commonly eaten as a vegetable. It still grows wild, but today is regularly cultivated. The part of the plant that is normally eaten is the petiole - the leaf stalk - which has a crisp texture, and is similar to rhubarb in some respects, although the leaves can also be eaten. This is rarely the case, as they have a strong flavour, although they can be used in soups, stews and as a dried herb. The seeds of celery are used as a spice, sometimes on their own, or ground and mixed with salt to make celery salt.

Celery can be eaten raw, but it is also used in cooked dishes. The plant has probably been eaten for several thousand years, although originally it would have been the wild form that was eaten.

National French Bread Day

National French Bread Day is on March 21st in the United States.

French bread, sometimes called a French stick or a French loaf, is a type of bread also known as a baguette. The name "baguette" simply means wand or baton, and wasn't used as a name for a type of bread until the 20th century, although long, thin loaves had been cooked for much longer than that.

French bread is a long, thin loaf - and the composition of the dough is defined under French law with a distinctive crisp crust to it. The loaves tend to be 2-2.5" centimetres in diameter, but the length can vary quite a lot, with 26" being the most common although both longer and shorter can be got.

French bread can be used like any other type of bread, but its long, narrow shape makes it very popular for sandwiches. A full French loaf would not be used; it would either be cut into sections or a shorter, "sandwich" baguette can be used instead.

National Ravioli Day

National Ravioli Day is on March 20th in the United States.

Ravioli is another traditional Italian pasta dish, and one that is traditionally made at home, although most (certainly, outside of Italy or not of Italian origin) would probably purchase it pre-made. This one is considered to be a type of dumpling.

Ravioli is a filled pasta. The filling, of which there can be many different types, is placed in the centre of a small square of pasta. Another square of the same size is paced on top and the edges crimped together. Other shapes are also used, such as circles, and one rectangular piece of pasta may be used, with the filling placed at one end and the pasta folded over.

Ravioli may be served in a broth, but is also commonly served in sauces. Heinz make a popular tinned ravioli that comes in a tomato sauce.

National Chocolate Caramel Day

March 19th is National Chocolate Caramel Day in the United States.

Yes, yet another day celebrating that wonderful creation, chocolate. This time it is teamed up with caramel.

Caramel, which covers a range of different finished products, is made by heating up sugars of many different types. The caramelised sugar has a distinctive colour - it's, not surprisingly, caramel coloured! - and can have different consistencies, from quite firm to quite gooey.

There are different confections and candy products that combine caramel and chocolate. Some, such as the Galaxy Milk Caramel, have a milk chocolate shell enclosing a soft caramel centre. Another is the dessert biscuit known as caramel shortbread, millionaires' shortbread and caramel slice amongst others, which is made from shortbread which is then covered with a layer of soft, but not liquid, caramel and finally topped with milk chocolate. It is frequently cut into squares.

National Lacy Oatmeal Cookie Day

March 18th is National Lacy Oatmeal Cookie Day in the United States.

Yet another day celebrating a type of cookie (or biscuit) and yet another biscuit that uses the ever-popular oatmeal as an ingredient.

Lacy oatmeal cookies contain oatmeal - naturally - which is ground oat groats. Oatmeal is quite a healthy addition to a diet, although generally, in order to receive the full health benefits, it's best not to wrap them around a cookie first! The lacy part of the name comes from the appearance of the finished cookies - they are full of lace-like holes.

These cookies would normally be a type of drop cookie, which are made from a comparatively soft dough, spoonfuls of which are then "dropped" onto the baking tray before they are cooked. In the UK, biscuits of this type are generally the only ones that are referred to as cookies.

National Corned Beef & Cabbage Day

National Corned Beef & Cabbage Day is on March 17th in the United States.

Bacon and cabbage is a traditional Irish dish. Unsliced back bacon would be boiled together with cabbages and potatoes, and possibly other vegetables. Most families both grew their own vegetables and raised their own pigs, so it was an easy dish to get the ingredients for.

19th century Irish immigrants to the United States created this North American variant of the dish, by substituting corned beef -  a salt cured beef product popular in the British Isles in particular. where the beef is treated with large grains, or "corns," of rock salt to preserve it - for the bacon.

Corned beef & cabbage is a popular dish on St. Patrick's Day in the United States, though it's actually an American dish rather than a truly Irish one.

National Artichoke Hearts Day

National Artichoke Hearts Day is on March 16th in the United States.

Artichoke hearts come from the artichoke, a type of thistle. They were first eaten around the Mediterranean, which area the wild variety is native too. Today, much of the cultivation of the plant remains around the Mediterranean.

The part of the artichoke that is eaten is the flower bud before it starts to bloom. The bud is comprised of a large head surrounded by triangular scales. Although typically green, they can also have a purple tinge.

The heart is not the entire bud, but is the base of it after all the scales are removed. The heart can be boiled, baked or pickled.

Artichoke hearts are quite a healthy plant to eat; they have one of the highest antioxidant capacities of any vegetable. They contain other important nutrients too.

National Pears Helene Day

National Pears Helene Day is on March 15th in the United States.

From this dish's name it's obvious that it contains pears. However, it certainly doesn't contain Helene. It is also sometimes called Pears Belle Helene.

This is a dessert dish that uses pears as a base. Firm dessert pears such as Bartlett are the best types. The pears need to be cooked, either by purchasing them that way, or using fresh and cooking them.

To serve, they are halved and served with vanilla ice cream as well as a chocolate sauce.

There are easy ways and hard ways of making this dish. The easy way is to buy tinned pears and pre-made chocolate sauce. The hard way is, of course, to make everything from scratch. The easy way can be done quite simply if the ingredients are already to hand, and most will keep quite well.

National Potato Chip Day

National Potato Chip Day is on March 14th in the United States.

Potato chips - which are also called crisps in other countries, as chips are what the Americans call french fries, but the word crisp also covers a lot of snacks made in a similar manner - are, as the name suggests, made from potatoes. They are a type of snack food in which thin slices of potato are either baked or deep fried until they are crunchy.

It's not certain when and where potato chips originated, although it looks to have been in 19th century America. Originally, most potato chips were available primarily in restaurants, but in the 20th century they started being made for home consumption. Early potato chips in this manner where sold loose or in tins, rather than being bagged. With the creation of cellophane, it was possible to cheaply seal potato chips in bags for home consumption.

Early potato chips were not flavoured; the first flavoured ones appeared in the mid 20th century, with two companies coming up with their own flavourings at the same time. Prior to that, the closest to pre-packaged flavoured chips was from Smiths Potato Crisps Ltd which had a twist of salt enclosed with the snack - which is why "Ready Salted" is a name for a flavour, as originally you had to add your own salt.

National Coconut Torte Day

National Coconut Torte Day is on March 13th in the United States.

Tortes are a type of sweet dessert dish. There are a quite a few popular and well known European dishes that are tortes. Tortes are rich cakes that are usually multilayered and which can be filled with a variety of different ingredients, including whipped cream and fruit. After being baked and cooled, tortes are often glazed.

This particular type of torte uses coconuts inside it. Coconuts, like so many things with "nut" in their name, are not botanical nuts but are culinary ones. Many different parts of the coconut are edible. The part that is usually used in dessert dishes is the white, fleshy part of the seed, which can be used both fresh and dried.

National Baked Scallops Day

March 12th is National Baked Scallops Day in the United States.

Scallops are a type (or, depending on the usage, a related type) of bivalve marine mollusc. Scallops have a distinctively shaped shell, which has been collected for many years, as well as being a used as a symbol for many things, and the name itself is also used to refer to a wavy pattern similar to that of the edge of the shell.

Scallops are a popular food dish, with both wild and cultured scallops being eaten, the latter especially as the populations of wild scallops has declined. The scallop comprises of a large, white, meaty part, called the scallop, and a small, softer red or white part, known as the roe. In the US, frequently only the scallop is sold; in the UK and Australia, in particular, the shellfish can be bought consisting of both the roe (which is edible) and the main part of the scallop.

When baking scallops, the shellfish is frequently covered in crumbs of some type.

National Oatmeal Nut Waffle Day

National Oatmeal Nut Waffle Day is on March 11th in the United States.

This is yet another day celebrating a really, really specific type of food. Not merely a waffle, but an oatmeal waffle, and not merely an oatmeal waffle but an oatmeal nut waffle.

Waffles are made from dough that is cooked between two plates, or "waffle irons," which gives them their distinctive appearance. In oatmeal nut waffles, the dough is made as usual, only oats and chopped nuts (of whatever type) are folded into the mixture before it is cooked.

The waffles are then cooked, as usual, and are usually eaten for breakfast, perhaps with a sweet accompaniment, such as maple syrup or fruit. This is a healthier version of the normal waffle recipe. Of course, to keep it healthier, fruit is a far better accompaniment than maple syrup is.

National Pack Your Lunch Day

National Pack Your Lunch Day is on March 10th in the United States.

This may seem like an odd day to celebrate, but it has the potential to be a healthy one.

Lunches can often be a problem. Lunch is frequently eaten whilst still at work - whether at work, or in the lunch hour. As time is limited, there is a tendency to buy food - if we do not have it with us - that is quick and easy. Which tends to mean fast food, sandwiches or other unhealthy items.

By packing a lunch to take to work (or to school, or whatever), a much better choice in food can be made. Even a sandwich can be made with much better and healthier ingredients than would be found in many commercial sandwiches.

Another advantage is that making your own lunch tends to be much, much cheaper.

National Crabmeat Day

National Crabmeat Day is on March 9th in the United States.

Crabmeat, or crab meat, is, not surprisingly, the meat from crabs. Crabmeat is eaten in many different countries across the world, and there are various different species that are commercially harvested for the meat. Believe it or not, crabmeat used to be much more of a luxury item than it is today.

Crabmeat is also graded, although how it is graded varies depending on the country and region. In Europe, crabmeat is divided into white meat and brown meat. White meat comes from the legs and claws and tends to be more highly valued. Brown meat comes from the body and is higher in fat.

In the US, crabmeat comes in more grades, depending on where in the body it comes from and, in some cases, what species of crab. The grades are colossal, jumbo lump, lump, back fin, special, claw and claw fingers.

Crabmeat is a popular ingredient in many different dishes.

National Peanut Cluster Day

National Peanut Cluster Day is on March 8th in the United States.

The traditional peanut cluster is simply a cluster of peanuts that have been covered in chocolate.

This makes them a comparatively easy treat to make at home, as all you need are some peanuts and some melted chocolate. Simply melt the chocolate, dip the shelled peanuts into the chocolate, then put them in piles - "clusters" on a suitable non-stick surface to harden, rather than individually. Individual small cake papers, such as for fairy cakes, are suitable for this. Alternatively, you could fill one of these cake liners with peanuts, and pour the chocolate over them.

Whilst this is the simplest type of peanut cluster, other ingredients could also be added, such as raisins. There are a number of different commercial varieties of peanut cluster available too.

National Cereal Day

National Cereal Day is on March 7th in the United States.

In this case "cereal" does not mean the type of grass known as a cereal crop, whose grains are commonly eaten. Instead, it refers to what are, more fully, called "breakfast cereals."

These cereals are processed foods made from processed grains from the true type of cereal. They are breakfast cereals because they are commonly eaten as the first meal of the day, often mixed with milk, but yoghurt and fruit are also used. Many breakfast cereals are eaten cold, but some, commonly known as porridges (various oatmeal porridges are popular in the UK), are eaten hot.

Porridges are, in fact, probably the oldest types of breakfast cereals, and were eaten in Northern Europe and Russia. In the US, corn was ground to make grits and hominy. Readymade cereals, which didn't need cooking, starting being produced in the mid 19th century, and at the end of that century Dr John Harvey Kellogg and his brother accidentally made what are now known as cornflakes.

National Frozen Food Day

National Frozen Food Day is on March 6th in the United States.

Frozen food is hardly a new concept. In cold countries, using the winter chill to freeze foods has been used for centuries. This is, of course, a concept that doesn't translate too well to warm countries, without the use of artificial freezing; however, frozen foods were still being shipped prior to the advent of home freezers, such as frozen poultry from Russia to Britain in the 19th century, which didn't start spreading until the mid 20th century.

In 1929, Clarence Birdseye introduced the concept of flash freezing, having noticed how foods that were quickly frozen tasted fresh when they thawed out. Today, frozen foods are commonplace, and an integral part of most modern cooking, allowing foods to be kept edible for longer.

Flash frozen fruit and vegetables can actually be fresher than "fresh" ones when they are purchased in a supermarket. Most fresh foods take several days to arrive at their destination; frozen ones are frozen within hours of harvesting. This makes them better nutritionally - assuming, of course, that the frozen foods don't have preservatives added to them.

National Cheese Doodle Day

National Cheese Doodle Day is on March 5th in the United States.

What is a cheese doodle? Well, it's one name for a type of puffed corn snack food, or crisp. They are also called things such as cheese balls, cheese puffs, corn curls, corn cheese and cheesy puffs.

These are available under a number of different brand names. A couple of the more well known are the American Cheez Doodles and the British Wotsits.

Cheese doodles date back to 1930s America, although it's not known for certain by who, as there are two claims to it. They are made by extruding corn dough through a shaped die. These dies, like the different varieties, come in different shapes; whilst long, possibly curved forms may be more common, as the  different names suggest, balls and curls are also made. The corn dough is then coated in either cheese or cheese-flavoured powders.

National Pound Cake Day

National Pound Cake Day is on March 4th in the United States.

The "pound" in pound cake refers to the unit of weight, and how much of the ingredients are used. The cake itself is believed to have originated in northern Europe in the early 18th century, although the recipe has changed a bit over time.

In the traditional Southern American style pound cake, there are four main ingredients: sugar, butter, eggs and flour. One pound of each ingredient is used in the mix, although, for both smaller and larger quantities, the same dessert will still be created as long as the 1:1:1:1 ratio of ingredients is maintained - it will just be either smaller or larger.

Other ingredients may be used, such as flavourings, and different countries can have their own variations on the recipe.

The cake will normally be cooked in either a Bundt mould or a loaf pan. Once cooked, it may then be dusted with sugar, glazed or iced.

National Cold Cuts Day

National Cold Cuts Day is on March 3rd in the United States.

What are "cold cuts" anyway? If you haven't heard of them before, the name is hardly helpful - it doesn't even relate to food in any obvious way.

Once you know the alternative names for cold cuts, it becomes much more comprehensible. Cold cuts are also known as sandwich meats, deli meats, lunch or luncheon meats (although luncheon meat is, in many countries, used to refer to reclaimed meat and offal), cold meats and sliced meats. It's pretty obvious at this point that cold cuts are meat, and cold at that.

Cold cuts are made from cooked or preserved meats, frequently in sausage or meat loaf form, which are then sliced - "cut" - and served cold. They are common ingredients in many different types of sandwiches, but can also be used in salads and other dishes.

One problem with cold cuts is the amount of surface area they have, which means there is a correspondingly higher percentage of preservatives in them.

National Banana Creme Pie Day

National Banana Creme Pie Day is on March 2nd in the United States.

This is yet another custard filled dessert pie (some cream pies are cakes). The pie is made from a pie shell, which is then filled with the custard - the custard is related to crème patissière, a pastry cream which has starch added to thicken it.

The creme, or cream, pie can have many different flavourings, with fruit being the most popular. In this case, the chosen fruit is banana. The bananas can be blended into the cream (very ripe bananas are best for this) or, alternatively, simply sliced up and placed in the cream. The pie is topped with whipped cream after cooking.

Like many such dishes, it has a strong association with the United States, in particular the American South.

National Peanut Butter Lover's Day

March 1st is National Peanut Butter Lover's Day in the United States.

This is a bit unusual, in that it's not really celebrating a food. Instead, it's really celebrating those who consume it - the lovers of peanut butter, rather than peanut butter itself. For those who love it, though, today does provide another excuse to eat this.

This food paste, which is made from ground and dry roasted  peanuts (which, like so many foods with "nut" in their name, is not actually a botanical nut; instead, it's a legume). It is probably most popular in North America, with the US being the world's largest exporter.

The most common varieties are referred to as crunchy and smooth, with crunchy being, well crunch, and smooth not. Crunchy is better for you, if only slightly.

Peanut butter is popular in sandwiches, and is an ingredient in many other dishes, from sweet foods like cookies, to savoury foods, such as many Asian dishes.