National Hot Mulled Cider Day

September 30th is National Hot Mulled Cider Day in the US.

Cider is an alcoholic drink made from apples (although there are an increasingly large number of other fruit ciders that are becoming popular). The exact percentage of apple juice that is required for a drink to be called cider varies from country to country; in the UK is must be at least 35%, in the US 50% and in France 100%. The drink shouldn't be confused with the non-alcoholic apple cider, as it is called in the US and Canada.

Any apples can be made into cider, but there are specific cultivars grown for the purpose which are known as cider apples. Cider has been made in the UK for over a 1,000 years, maybe 2,000 or more, and today it is still one of the most popular drinks.

Hot mulled cider can be made with either the alcoholic version, or the un-alcoholic apple cider. In each case, spices are added to the drink, as they are other mulled drinks, and it is then heated. One traditional way of heating such drinks was heating a poker in a fireplace, and then sticking the heated end into the cup. This is not that common today; the cider is more likely to be heated on a stove or in a microwave. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and orange peel are common additions to hot mulled cider, but others can be used.

National Honey Month

September is National Honey Month in the United States.

Honey is made by bees from the nectar of flowers, with that made by honey bees, not surprisingly, being the one usually referred to, and is the one that is normally consumed.

Honey has been used as a sweetener, and in the creation of sweets and candies, for a long time, as there is evidence of it being collected dating back at least 8,000 years. The earliest honey was collected from wild nests, but it is not known when humanity began keeping bees for their honey. It dates back before history in China.

There are many different types of honey, from that still in the comb of the honeybees to jars of honey. Clear and set honey are a couple of the most common types commercially available, with clear honey resembling syrup to some extent. Crystallised honey can also be bought, although most honey will crystallise anyway in time. As well as the types, the flowers that the bees collect their nectar from can also be specified. In the UK, a common type is heather honey.

Honey mostly consists of various sugars, but the flowers available to the bees do affect the finished product.

National Coffee Day

National Coffee Day is on September 29th in the United States.

Coffee is a drink that is made from the beans of several species of the shrub Coffea. The beans can be roasted or baked. The two most common species used are Coffea arabica, which are often referred to as arabica beans and are considered to be superior, and Coffea canephora.

Coffee is quite a recent drink, as the earliest definite accounts only date back to the 15th century (there are legendary accounts that have no evidence to back them up of earlier usage) when coffee seeds were roasted and brewed in Arabia. Coffee then spread across the Middle East, Africa and India, and then across the rest of the world. Some of the earliest seeds had to be smuggled out of the Middle East.

Coffee is notable for its high caffeine content, which gives it a stimulating effect, but the caffeine is also responsible for most of the possible negative effects caused from drinking coffee. Caffeine is a drug, and users do suffer withdrawal effects when they stop taking it.

Once the green coffee beans have been roasted, there are different grades of coffee, and the beans when finished can be used to prepare coffee, by grinding them and filtering hot water through them, although instant coffee, which is a freeze dried powder, is one of the most popular ways of preparing coffee to the fact that this can be done quickly and easily. The taste is not considered as good, though.

National Cholesterol Education Month

September is National Cholesterol Education Month in the United States.

cholesterol is something that is frequently mentioned in regards to health, but what is it? It is a fat like substance that is essential to health. There are two types of cholesterol, which are sometimes called "good" and "bad" cholesterol. "Bad" cholesterol, more properly called low-density lipoprotein, is the one that needs watching out for.

Being careful of what you eat is the best way of avoiding bad cholesterol, having a healthy diet, exercising and maintaining a healthy weight. Smoking is another source, so stopping - if you smoke - also helps. Increasing the amount of plant based foods and decreasing the animal based ones has also been shown to help lower levels of cholesterol.

Cholesterol levels can be checked regularly, and certain groups should have them checked frequently. Age is a major factor; as both men and women get older, their cholesterol levels will need checking regularly.

National Chocolate Milk Day

September 27th is National Chocolate Milk Day in the United States.

This day celebrates something that is pretty much what it sounds like - chocolate flavoured milk. This drink, which in many ways is rather similar to hot chocolate, differs in one major way in that it is usually served cold, not hot. The drink itself originated in Jamaica in the late seventeenth century.

Milk, of whatever type is preferred - including non-dairy - has either chocolate, or cocoa, powder or syrup added to it, along with a sweetener. This drink can be made at home, or it can be bought pre-made if preferred. Homemade can be a lot healthier, as many pre-made versions are unfortunately rather high in sugar and should therefore be avoided. Given that this is a drink that is popular with children, it is a good idea to make your own with healthier, lower sugar and lower fat ingredients.

National Corned Beef Hash Day

September 27th is National Corned Beef Hash Day in the United States.

Corned beef hash is a hash made from, not surprisingly, corned beef. Corned beef is a beef product, but it doesn't contain corn. Instead, it is salt cured and treated with rock salt. The grains of the rock salt are large, and are called corns, hence corned beef.

Corned beef is an old product, although it is not known how old, but it dates back to Ancient times back when foods first started being prepared. The name itself derives from Old English. Corned beef really started becoming popular when preserved meat was needed for the Atlantic trade on sailing ships from the 17th century onwards, especially on British merchant and naval ships. Tinned corned beef has in the past been very common in Britain.

Hash itself is a product made from potatoes, spices and meat that are mixed (chopped, the French word for which is hacher) together and cooked, possibly including other things such as onions. Hash is often a cheap and cheerful dish, especially in Britain, although different parts have different names for the dish, but more upmarket versions exist.

National Pancake Lovers Day

September 26th is National Pancake Lovers Day in the US.

Although this holiday is sometimes called National Pancake Day, it should not be confused with the true Pancake Day which is on Shrove Tuesday during the Easter period.

Pancakes are a versatile dish, as they can be either sweet or savoury, depending on what other foods they are accompanied with. The basic pancake is made from a starch based batter.

Unlike Shrove Tuesday, the pancakes eaten on this day are of the North American type. The former day's pancakes are thin, whilst the latter use a raising agent in the batter, which results in a pancake similar to a Scotch pancake or drop scone. These pancakes are thicker, being about a centimetre thick rather than a millimetre or two, but not as wide, being only 10 cm wide whilst the other type is wider. They are traditionally eaten as a breakfast dish with a wide range of other foods, traditionally in a stack with syrup and butter.

Pancakes are one of the oldest foods known and are eaten worldwide. As well as the types mentioned above, there are many different regional variations, using flour based batters which are poured onto a flat surface to cook, whether a pan, griddle or something else.

National Crab Meat Newburg Day

In the United States September 25th is National Crab Meat Newburg Day.

This is a variation on the more well known dish Lobster Newburg, also spelled Lobster Newberg, only using crab as the main ingredient rather than lobster.

The dish is otherwise very similar to that first invented by Ben Wenberg and later added to Delmonico's Restaurant in New York, which had its name change following an argument between the restaurant and Newberg.

Like Lobster Newburg, Crab Meat Newburg is a seafood dish that uses crab as the base and is cooked in a sauce made from cream, cognac, eggs, sherry, butter and Cayenne pepper. The dish is also similar to Lobster Thermidor. The sauce, as can be inferred from the list of ingredients, is quite a rich one.

National Cherries Jubilee Day

September 24th is National Cherries Jubilee Day in the United States.

Cherries Jubilee is a dessert dish that is credited to the influential French chef and restaurateur Auguste Escoffier who is also credited with popularising French cuisine. The dish was apparently created for a jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria, hence the name.

Cherries Jubilee, to no great surprise, uses cherries - the fruit of a number of plants of the sweet cherry family in this case - as the main ingredient, as well as a liqueur. The preferred liqueur is Kirsch - the name is German for "cherry water" - which is a clear and colourless fruit brandy that's made from morello cherries.

The dish is then flambéed, where the alcohol is ignited with a blue tinged flame, and then often served as a sauce over vanilla ice cream.

National Chicken Month

September is National Chicken Month in the United States.

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, one of the earliest domesticated animals and the most common type of poultry in the world. The modern chicken is believed to be descended from the Red Junglefowl, and was raised thousands of years ago on the Indian subcontinent. Since then, it has spread all over the world.

Chickens are raised both for their eggs and their flesh, both of which are eaten. There are many different ways of cooking the meat of the chicken, which is also called chicken. They can be cooked whole, or in part, and in Japan they are sometimes even eaten raw as a type of sashimi, although this does risk salmonella. Chicken meat is sold both cooked and raw, and can be used in many different dishes. Even the carcass of a chicken, after it has been cooked and the meat removed, can be used, with it boiled to make chicken stock which can be used as a base for soups and sauces.

Chickens are a comparatively cheap and cost effective meat to buy, with almost all of it being edible. When buying whole chickens for roasting, barbecuing or whatever, it makes sense to buy a bigger bird, as the larger the bird, the less percentage of the weight is taken up by the bones of it.

National White Chocolate Day

September 22nd is National White Chocolate Day in the United States.

Like other types of chocolate, there are regulations in some countries as to what can actually be called white chocolate. The percentages of cocoa butter, milk solids and milk fat that are needed as a minimum are the same in the United States and in Europe, but in the latter the amount of sweeteners that can be used is not limited.

There is some argument as to whether or not white chocolate is actually chocolate. Although it is made from cocoa butter -  a pale yellow fat extracted from the cocoa bean which is used to make chocolate - is does not contain cocoa solids - which are the mixture remaining after the cocoa butter is extracted and which are also used in other chocolates.

White chocolate is not actually white; instead, it tends towards a pale yellow or ivory appearance. It is a more recent invention than other primary chocolate types, and is often popular with children, which audience the marketing is often targeted at, such as with Milky Bars. This may be because of the sweetness; white chocolate is substantially sweeter than even milk chocolate.

Even though children do seem to be the primary market, there are more adult versions of white chocolate around.

National Pecan Cookie Day

National Pecan Cookie Day is on September 21st in the United States.

Like so many nuts, whether culinary nuts or true nuts, pecans can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes. Pecans themselves are culinary nuts, not true nuts, as the fruit is a drupe, or a fruit with a single stone or pit that is surrounded by a husk.

The pecan tree is native to Mexico and the United States, and the nut is a common ingredient in dishes from the Southern US.

The pecan cookie, or biscuit in other countries, is a small baked treat, usually flat, made from eggs, flour, sugar and a type of fat, whether butter or cooking oil, with other ingredients perhaps mixed in. In the pecan cookie, the other ingredients are, naturally, pecans, which are a good source of various nutrients, and have a buttery taste.

National Better Breakfast Month

September is National Better Breakfast Month in the United States.

Breakfast, despite the fact it is often called the most important meal of the day, is also the one that is most commonly abused or neglected. It is the first meal of the day, and the meal that breaks the fast of the night.

There are many different dishes around the world that are eaten at breakfast, or considered to be breakfast food. It can be a good idea to choose a healthy breakfast, rather than some of the alternatives - the Full English, and its alternatives such as the Full Irish, are hot and definitely filling but are also quite heavy on the calories. The breakfast type known as the Continental tends to be lighter, and consists of fruit juices and breads or pastries, sometimes accompanied by cooked meats and cheeses.

Breakfast cereals, especially whole grain ones, can be a healthy dish to have, but many of them are so heavily laden with sugar that any health benefits are completely lost. Toast, topped with marmalade or other preserves, or honey, is also a popular breakfast dish.

Recent years have seen a rise in the number of breakfast cereal bars and biscuits (cookies) which purport to have all the benefits of a cereal, but in an easily prepared and consumed snack.

National Butterscotch Pudding Day

September 19th is National Butterscotch Pudding Day in the United States.

Butterscotch is a type of hard confectionery with a distinctive colour which does contain butter, as well as brown sugar and possibly other ingredients, although it doesn't contain scotch. However, it is not an ingredient in butterscotch pudding.

Butterscotch pudding does contain butter and brown sugar, too, and the term in this case is used to refer to the flavour of the pudding, which is similar to that of butterscotch. When butterscotch itself is made, the sugar is boiled to the soft crack stage, but in butterscotch pudding, the brown sugar is simply mixed with butter, along with other ingredients, relying on the cooking process itself - usually baking - to get the butterscotch taste.

Butterscotch may be a hard sweet, but butterscotch pudding is a baked dessert, although one with a similar taste and often a similar golden colour, thanks to the brown sugar and butter.

National Cheeseburger Day

September 18th in the United States is National Cheeseburger Day.

What is a cheeseburger? Well, at its simplest, it's a hamburger that has been topped with cheese.

The most common variation encountered, mostly from fast food restaurants, is a meat patty (in some countries, such as the UK, the patty made from ground meat, rather than the finished item, is referred to as the beef burger or hamburger) topped with a slice of processed cheese served in a bun. This is the most basic type, but there are others.

Although hamburgers, and similar items, have been around for years, adding cheese to the top of them is a more recent innovation. It's not known precisely where or when this was first created, but it became popular in the United States in the 1920s to 30s, and this is when reference to them started occurring.

Instead of processed cheese, others such as mozzarella or Stilton can be added. These are more likely to be found in restaurants other than fast food places. As well as the cheese topping, other toppings and sauces will be found on most cheeseburgers. The cheese itself is usually melted, either from the heat of the cooked burger, or by placing it under a heat source before adding the top slice of bun to it.

National Apple Dumpling Day

September 17th is National Apple Dumpling Day in the US.

Many dumplings are savoury. Apple dumplings, naturally, are not. Dumplings of any type are balls of dough that have been cooked. Different ingredients can be used to make them as well as the dough, including fish, meat and vegetables, as well as the fruit used in this one.

The additional ingredients may be used as a filling for the dumpling, or instead they may be added to the dough mix itself. Usually, if added to the mix, the additional ingredients will be finely chopped.

There are many different ways of cooking dumplings, too. They can be baked, fried, boiled or simmered. How they are cooked can depend on the ingredients in them. There are different types of dumplings made in countries all over the world.

Apples are one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, which originated in Central Asia, and have since spread across the world with many different varieties. The apple tree was one of the earliest to be cultivated; it may even be the first. Some varieties are more suited for cooking - in other words, using in apple dumplings - than others. The Bramley apple is a British variety often used in cooking.

National Guacamole Day

National Guacamole Day is on September 16th in the United States.

Guacamole is a Mexican dish that originated with the people commonly known as Aztecs. The dish at its most basic is made from mashing ripe avocados with sea salt. Modern variations use more ingredients than these basic two.

Recipes may use other ingredients such as peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic and chilli, amongst others.

Guacamole is a popular item to eat with tortilla chips, in a chips and dips selection, for a snack or a light starter, although it can be used as an ingredient or topping in other Mexican dishes.

Guacamole can be homemade, bought fresh or in jars and tins. One thing to watch out for when buying pre-made guacamole is the amount of avocado in what is being sold. Some commercial variants are sold as guacamole style sauce, rather than as guacamole, and can have avocado percentages of under ten percent. Given that avocado is the most important ingredient in guacamole, such sauces with such low percentages of avocado really cannot be considered to be guacamole, and are best avoided.

National Cinnamon-Raisin Bread Day

September 16th is National Cinnamon-Raisin Bread Day in the United States.

This is both one of the more specific national days and one of those that are exactly what they sound like - cinnamon-raisin bread is a type of sweet bread that has cinnamon and raisins in it.

Cinnamon is a spice that comes from the inner bark of a number of Cinnamomum trees. Cinnamon is used in savoury dishes, but it is also one of those spices that are extensively used in sweet dishes too, particularly with apples, but with other things as well. The various different Cinnamomum trees produce different types of cinnamon. One of these types is known as true cinnamon whilst the rest are commonly known as cassia. Cinnamon, when purchased, is normally either a powder or in sticks.

Raisins are dried grapes, and the meaning of the term does vary, as in some countries the word raisin is used to exclusively refer to the dried form of the large dark grape - currants are small Black Corinth grapes and sultanas large golden grapes - whilst in others the term is more general.

National Linguine Day

September 15th is National Linguine Day in the United States.

Linguine means "little tongues" in Italian, and this is a type of pasta that originated in the region of Genoa in Italy,

Pasta is a traditional Italian dish made from unleavened dough. Although the precise ingredients can vary, it is commonly made from flour and water.

Linguine is made from white flour or whole wheat and is a type of long, thin pasta about 4mm wide with an elliptical cross section.

This pasta is traditionally used in seafood and pesto dishes; pesto is a sauce made from garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, basil and Parmigian Reggiano cheese.

Like most pastas, this can be made at home if desired, but it is usally bought pre-made, either fresh or dried. Fresh pasta is more likely to be made locally, whilst dried is almost certainly machine made.

National Eat a Hoagie Day

National Eat a Hoagie Day is on September 14th in the United States.

The first question, for those unfamiliar with the name, is "What is a hoagie?"

A hoagie is a type of submarine sandwich, which is a long roll of either French or Italian bread that has been split open and filled with a wide range of fillings.

The hoagie originated in the Philadelphia area of the US. It's not altogether certain what the origins of the name are, but there are a few explanations.

The first is that it was a sandwich eaten by Italians working at the Philadelphia shipyard of Hog Island during World War I, and it was called the Hog Island Sandwich, which was later shortened to Hoagie. A second explanation was that it came from the slang "on the hoke" meaning someone who was destitute, and that these were given sandwiches filled with scraps. It was called a hokie, which was pronounced hoagie by the Italians.

A third explanation is that it came from the street vendors known as "hokey-pokey men" who sold a range of foods.

Whatever the origin of the name, it's a submarine sandwich.

National Cream Filled Donut Day

September 14th is National Cream Filled Donut Day in the United States.

There are two main types of doughnuts, the filled type which is commonly available in Britain, and the ring shaped variety that is more common in the U.S., although both types can be found in each country.

This is one of the former types of doughnuts. Filled doughnuts are made from doughnut butter that is shaped into a flattened sphere and then fried like a ring donut. The filling is then injected. In this case, it is cream, but cream does cover a variety of different fillings - there are many that could be called cream that are not what might typically considered to be cream. After this, the doughnut can be dipped into icing sugar or powdered sugar, or it could even be glazed and topped.

Snack a Pickle Time

September 13th is Snack a Pickle Time in the United States.

September is harvest season in the Northern Hemisphere, and pickling is a way of preserving food, making harvest a good time to do it.

Originally, foods were pickled simply as a means of preserving food over the winter, when there was no other way, but today foods are pickled for other reasons. The oldest known pickled foods date back over 4,000 years ago in India, well before there were such modern conveniences as freezers and canneries. Pickles preserve food, and not just vegetables can be pickled, for months longer than they would normally keep.

Vinegar may be the most common way of pickling today, but other liquids have been used in the past - including sweat!

The reason for using vinegar - a weak acid - is because it is acidic. The acid kills off most of the bacteria that would cause food to go off. Other acids may be used, although only weak ones, as strong acids are dangerous. As well as the vinegar, or other fluid, other ingredients such as flavoured oils, herbs and spices may also be added.

The name "pickle" is also used in the U.S. to refer to a specific type of pickled vegetable, the cucumber.

National Peanut Day

September 13th is National Peanut Day in the United States.

Peanuts, which are also known as groundnuts, despite their name and how they are commonly referred to, are not nuts. Instead, they are a type of legume or bean. The fruit of the peanut, rather unusually, grows under the ground.

The plant from which peanuts are harvested, which is known by the same name, has been domesticated for at least 7,000 years in South America. Since then, peanuts first spread across the Americas, before being transported around the rest of the world by European traders, with the largest harvest being grown in the People's Republic of China.

Peanuts are a popular snack food in many countries, where they are eaten boiled, dry roasted and salted, as well as an ingredient in cooking and many other dishes. Some uses for peanuts other than as snacks include in peanut oil and peanut butter. As a culinary ingredient, they are used in many different dish types, both sweet and savoury. In the United States in particular, peanuts and peanut butter are common ingredients in many sweet dishes. including cakes and cookies.

Peanuts are a good and rich source of many nutrients, but on the downside, peanut allergy (which isn't truly a nut allergy, because peanuts aren't a nut) is common and potentially fatal.

National Chocolate Milkshake Day

In the United States September 12th is National Chocolate Milkshake Day.

Another national day celebrating a flavour of the popular cold drink made from ice cream, milk or iced milk. This one uses the ever-popular chocolate as the flavour. In a good milkshake, this may be got from good quality powdered chocolate; in the more typical fast food milkshake, it will more probably be made by adding powder into milk. These may not even be mixed together at the fast food restaurant; instead, a pre-made mix will be turned into a milkshake by a machine. Making your own is the best way to go about it.

One downside of milkshakes is the amount of sugar that they have in them. Recently, varieties with less sugar and low-fat have been introduced, which are healthier (even if not completely healthy, despite the addition of other nutrients).

National Hot Cross Bun Day

September 11th is National Hot Cross Bun Day in the US.

Hot cross buns are a bun that is spiced and normally made with currants or raisins, but other variations can now be made including such things as cranberries and oranges. The name comes from the cross-shape on the top of the bun, and they are typically eaten hot or toasted.

This is an odd time of year to have a day related to the hot cross bun, as they are a traditional Easter foodstuff which is especially eaten on Good Friday, particularly in many countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. They are a food that is in many countries strongly linked to Christianity. In the UK, sale of the buns outside of Easter and Christmas has, in the past, been banned.

Quite why the buns are marked with a cross is uncertain. The cross was once made with shortcrust pastry, but now a paste of flour and water is normally used. The cross may seem like obvious Christian symbology, and a link to the cross of the crucifixion, but breads may have been marked with a cross prior to the rise of Christianity, and has been linked to other religions in the past.

National TV Dinner Day

September 10th is National TV Dinner Day in the US.

TV dinners are not something that brings to mind gourmet cuisine when the name is mentioned, and this is usually justified. The name TV Dinner used to be a trademark for a pre-packaged meal by C.A. Swanson & Sons in the fifties, with the full name being TV Brand Frozen Dinner, but it has since become a more general name. Swanson are recognised as creating the first successful dinner of this type, but there were precursors.

A TV dinner is a pre-packaged meal where everything needed to make a complete meal is in one package, which is then heated up in the microwave or the oven. The dinners themselves may be frozen or chilled. The first TV dinner was a Thanksgiving meal of turkey, peas, sweet potatoes and cornbread dressing. The shape of the tray the first one was apparently in the shape of a television, hence the name, not because they were designed to be eaten in front of a television, although that is usually the case.

TV dinners are easy meals, requiring only the ability to put them in the relevant cooking appliance to make them. They can even be, and often are, eaten out of the packet, reducing the amount of washing up available. TV dinners and pre-packaged meals are rarely that healthy, usually being processed with extra salt and fat being added to make them taste better. It is possible to make better ones of course.

Weinerschnitzel Day

Weinerschnitzel Day is September 9th in the United States.

Weinerschnitzel in this case refers to the Austrian dish, Weiner Schnitzel, not the American fast food chain. The name means Viennese schnitzel.

A schnitzel is boneless meat that has been thinned using a tenderiser (which terms refers to a number of different tools with the same purpose; the most common are hammer-shaped), which is then covered with a mix of beaten eggs, flour and bread crumbs and then fried.

There are many different types of schnitzel - just about any meat can be used in making one - bit a Weiner Schnitzel is a specific type that was first mentioned in the 19th century, although the dish, or precursor variations of it, is quite probably older. The Weiner Schnitzel uses veal (milk fed baby cow) as the meat. Given what the meat is, some people do object to this dish.

In recent times, the name Wiener Schnitzel has become much more generic, and it is sometimes used to describe similar dishes made with other meats, especially pork.

National Date Nut Bread Day

September 8th is National Date Nut Bread Day in the United States.

Now, this is one of the more specific food days out there. Not merely bread, or date bread, or nut bread, but date-nut bread.

Breads can be sweet or savoury, depending on the ingredients. This bread is one that would probably be classified as sweet. Nuts can be used in both sweet and savoury breads, but dates are unlikely to be found in anything but a sweet bread.

Different nuts (using the culinary definition of the term) can be used to make the bread, but walnuts are a popular one. The nuts will be chopped up before being adding to the bread mix. Dates are the fruit of the date palm, which is now grown widely around the world for the fruit. The origin of the date palm is unknown, but it was probably in Mesopotamia, and they are still a common ingredient and food in the Middle East. Dates have been eaten for many thousands of years. Dates can be eaten fresh, but they are often used dried, with the stone removed from them. In date-nut bread, the dates are most likely dried and chopped.

National Acorn Squash Day

National Acorn Squash Day is on September 7th in the United States.

No, this doesn't refer to a squashed acorn - even though acorns are edible - but to a type of squash.

Squashes are a type of gourd, many of which are eaten by people. Two main divisions of these, for culinary purposes anyway, are into winter and summer squashes. The acorn squash is a type of winter squash.

Winter squashes, despite their name, grow in summer. The difference is that winter squashes are eaten when they have matured and the rind has become hard. The name probably refers to the fact that, once the rind is hard, they can be easily stored for the winter.

Acorn squashes have yellow-orange flesh with a sweet flavour, and have distinctive ridges on the rind. The squash is a good source of various nutrients, and can be cooked in a variety of ways. It is not generally eaten raw.

The acorn squash is native to the North and Central America but, after European settlement of the continents, it has since spread.

Whole Grains Month

September is Whole Grains Month in the United States.

The name "whole grains" is pretty much self-explanatory. It refers to cereal grains that consist of the "whole" of the grain. In refined grains, only part of the cereal is actually used. Cereal grains themselves, of which there are many different types, are grasses that are used in food.

Whole grain breads and breakfast cereals have been rising in popularity, as awareness of whole grains has also been rising, although the exact definition of what a whole grain is can vary from country to country and region to region.

There have been a number of studies which have showed that the risk of certain chronic diseases can be decreased by eating whole grain food, as opposed to refined grains, and healthy food does not necessarily mean tasteless or boring.

National Coffee Ice Cream Day

In the United States, September 6th is National Coffee Ice Cream Day.

Ice cream is a popular dessert item, especially in the warm months of summer. There are many different flavours of ice cream available - indeed, you can have or make pretty much any flavour you want, although there is no guarantee about how good it will taste.

Coffee is always a popular drink, so making an ice cream with the flavour of this much-loved drink is a no-brainer. As with all flavours of ice cream, the quality of coffee ice cream can vary, depending on the source of the coffee flavouring used. Coffee beans come in different qualities, and the best coffee ice cream will use the best beans for the flavour, and may even have coffee beans, or parts of them, mixed into the ice cream itself.

National Cheese Pizza Day

September 5th in the United States is National Cheese Pizza Day.

What is a cheese pizza? Well, it could be interpreted as being any pizza, of whatever type - calzone, deep pan or thin and crispy, for example - that has cheese on it. Which, seeing as cheese is one of most common pizza ingredients, would actually be most of them. Mozzarella is the standard, traditional pizza cheese, with buffalo mozzarella being found on the best.

Alternatively, it could be a pizza where cheese is the most important, or practically sole (except for herbs and the tomato based pizza topping) ingredient. One of the traditional cheese pizzas, and one of the oldest pizzas referred to as such is the Margherita, which is made with mozzarella, tomato, basil and extra virgin olive oil. Although the latter two ingredients will often be left out, even though they are still typically called Margheritas.

Other cheese pizzas would have multiple different cheeses on them, such as three and four cheese (or even more) pizzas. These are definitely for the cheese lover. Cheddar cheese is a popular cheese type found on multiple cheese pizzas, as it has a good taste and melts well in cooking.

National Mushroom Month

September is National Mushroom Month in the United States.

Mushrooms are the fruiting body of fungus, the part that usually exists above ground whilst the main body of the fungus is often out of sight.

Some mushrooms are edible, whilst others are deadly - for example, the death cap looks like a cap and will kill you.

It is possible to harvest wild mushrooms, but this is not something that an amateur should really be doing, as only edible and non-toxic varieties want harvesting, and someone who doesn't know what they are doing could pick the wrong types.

Many different types are regularly eaten, such as the common white, more exotic types such as the oyster or shiitake or the really expensive truffle. Mushrooms can be cooked, but they can also be eaten raw. Many types are grown commercially, but others, often the wild varieties, are grown wild but commercially harvested. Mushrooms come in a wide variety of different sizes, shapes, consistencies and flavours. Mushroom growing kits, so you can grow your own at home, can be bought, and the vegetarian protein product Quorn is made from fungus.

National Macadamia Nut Day

National Macadamia Nut Day falls on September 4th in the US.

Macadamia nuts are, not surprisingly, found on the macadamia tree. This tree was originally native to Australia, but has since been taken to other countries and regions to be used as a commercial crop, including Africa, South America, America (with Hawaii being one of the largest producers in the world, along with Australia) and Israel.

The macadamia nut was eaten for thousands of years in Australia, but for the rest of the world it is a much more recent item, spreading in the late 19th century. The macadamia nut is a seed, so it's actually a culinary nut, rather than a true one.

Macadamia nuts are not one of the more nutritious culinary nuts. They are high in fat (and have the highest monounsaturated fats of any known seed) and low in protein, but are still a popular item, albeit one that is often more expensive than other nuts. They do contain useful nutrients, though, and are often used as ingredients in other dishes, or covered in chocolate, as well as being eaten roasted or salted. Macadamia nuts are poisonous to dogs.

National Rice Month

September is National Rice Month in the United States.

Rice, a cereal grain, is one the world's biggest staple foods. It is the most widely consumed for a large percentage of the population and, in terms of calorific intake, is the largest grain. Whilst Asian countries may consume the most rice, the rest of the world still consumes a significant amount of it.

Rice was first domesticated in the region of the Pearl River Valley of modern day China. The exact date of its domestication isn't known, only that it was somewhere between eight and thirteen thousand years ago.

There are many different varieties if rice, which are divided into long, medium and short grain. When cooked, rice can be sticky, but this does not have to be the case if it is not desired. After the rice is cooked, it can be eaten both hot and cold and in both sweet and savoury dishes - rice pudding is a popular dessert dish.

Rice can simply be served by itself, but it can, and frequently is, also be combined with other ingredients.

National Potato Month

September is National Potato Month in the United States.

This is an entire month devoted to the celebration of the not-so-humble potato, a tuber chock full of many different nutrients.

Potatoes are very flexible and there are so many ways of preparing them that it is quite possible to have them made a different way every single day of the month.

This is only a handful of different ways in which the potato can be prepared:

Baked - Also known as jacket potatoes, the potatoes are baked in an oven with their skin on, often wrapped in foil. After cooking, the potatoes are often split open and filled, perhaps only with butter, but the wide range of possible fillings means that it's possible to have a different baked potato every day of the month.

French Fried - Cut into fries or chips and then fried in oil.

Mashed - The potatoes are peeled, boiled and then mashed with milk.

Pancakes - These can be made with potatoes.

Potato Salad - Peeled or unpeeled potatoes are boiled, sliced into pieces - or used whole if they are small enough - and mixed with a dressing made with such as mayonnaise or salad cream.

Roasted - The potatoes are cut into pieces, covered in fat, such as goose fat, and then roasted in an oven.

Scalloped - A variety of different dishes with sliced, boiled potatoes placed in a dish, often sprinkled with grated cheese, and browned under a grill.

There are many more ways of using potatoes.

National Welsh Rarebit Day

September 3rd is National Welsh Rarebit Day.

Also, and possibly more correctly, known as Welsh rabbit, this dish is possibly not Welsh (welsh was a word used to mean foreigner), and certainly doesn't contain rabbit. Welsh rabbit was the earliest known term for this dish, dating back to the early 18th century, which was later corrupted to rarebit. Although it may not have originally been a Welsh dish, and another reason it may have got that name was because of the linking of Wales with cheese, there is also evidence of there being English, Scotch and Irish rabbits too.

This dish is basically cheese on toast. In its most common variants, a piece of toast is covered with a sauce made from melted cheese. The cheese, in the UK at least, is typically Cheddar (which is a good cheese for melting), and other ingredients are added to it. Some common ones are mustard and Worcestershire sauce, and there are also various boozy Welsh rarebit variations in which alcohol, such as beer or ale, or possibly cider, are also added. Where it differs from normal cheese on toast is that the cheese is typically made into a sauce, whilst in the normal version it is sliced and placed on top of the toast, and then melted.

Another variant is the buck rabbit, which is Welsh rarebit served with an egg on top.

National Organic Harvest Month

September is National Organic Harvest Month in the United States.

Over recent years, the popularity of organic foods has been steadily growing. The difference between organic foods and regular ones, is that organic foods use organic farming techniques and do not use the modern chemical and synthetic modern additives such as fertilisers and pesticides, nor do they use various food preservatives and additives in their processing.

Organic farming is frequently heavily regulated, at least if the food grown is going to be sold as organic. Before foods grown organically can be promoted as such, they need certifying by official bodies, and comprehensive records must be kept and frequent checks on the steps in the supply chain are also common. In those countries which do regulate organic food, anyone wanting to market their food as organic must comply the relevant regulations in order to be officially certified.

Organic farming is not a new idea - it is in fact a very old one that has seen a resurgence. Most farming throughout history has been done organically. In the twentieth century, the rise of artificial chemicals, fertilisers and pesticides saw non-organic farming become common. The whole concept behind organic food is that it is healthier to eat foods grown organically than those grown with the use of chemicals, chemicals which have only been around for a comparatively short time and whose long-term effects may not be adequately known.

National Biscuit Month

September is National Biscuit Month in the United States.

This month is celebrating the American biscuit, rather than the one in British English. In American English, biscuits are a type of small, soft leavened bread with a firm exterior. In British English, biscuits are small, sweet creations that in America are called "cookies," or possibly crackers, a savoury biscuit. In biscuits, the bread is leavened using baking powder, or baking soda, which leads to their alternative name of baking powder biscuits. Cookies originated as a storable version of bread.

A popular dish that originated in the Southern U.S. is biscuits and gravy. This dish consists of an American biscuit covered in a thick gravy - pretty much what it sounds like, unless you are using British English.

National Cherry Popover Day

September 1st is National Cherry Popover Day in the US.

The popover is a type of batter pudding made from an egg batter. It is very similar to the Yorkshire pudding (sometimes called Yorkshires), and is an American version of the same dish, so it dates back to at least the 17th century as far the Yorkshire is concerned, and to the mid-19th for the US version.

The popover is a hollow roll. Although Yorkshire puddings are traditionally served as a savoury dish, with the traditional Sunday lunch, they, like these, can be either sweet or savoury. Some of the earliest popovers were savoury puddings as they were cooked with meat drippings, but if such are left out, they can easily be made into a sweet one.

Sweet popovers can have spices added to them. In the case of the cherry popover, the hollow centre of the popover is filled with cherries, probably in a pie filling of some kind. There is nothing to say that whole, fresh cherries couldn't be used in a homemade recipe, but remember to remove the cherry stones before finishing the filling.

Image: Jeremy Noble from St. Paul, United States [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

National Waffle Week

The first week in September in the United States is National Waffle Week.

Waffles, especially when served with syrup of any type but particularly maple syrup, are often considered to be a breakfast item. Depending on the waffle and the other ingredients, they can also be a savoury item.

They can also be eaten for desserts. One example of a dessert that uses waffles is this:

You need to toast a waffle, a cinnamon waffle if you can get it, but otherwise a plain one.

Top the waffle with two scoops of ice cream - vanilla is probably the best to use.

Drizzle syrup over the waffle and ice cream, dust with ground cinnamon and, if you have them, small bits of crunchy toffee.

Eat the dessert quickly before the toasted waffle melts the ice cream.

Even though vanilla ice cream may be the best, you can use other flavours, and you can also use different syrups.