National Raisin Day

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April 30th is National Raisin Day in the United States.

Raisins are dried grapes and, in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, the term specifically refers to dried dark-coloured dark grapes, with currants being small Black Corinth seedless grapes and sultanas being golden-coloured dried grapes. Even within raisins, there can be different varieties depending on the type of grape used and, in the U.S., raisin can also be used to refer to what would be called a currant elsewhere. Nutritionally, raisins contain a lot of sugar, as well as dietary fibre and protein.

Raisins, though they can and are eaten on their own, often covered in chocolate, are frequently used as an ingredient in other dishes, especially cakes, puddings and pastries. Even without adding directly as an ingredient, they are also sometimes mixed with other foods, such as in trail mix.

National Cherry Cheesecake Day

April 23rd is National Cherry Cheesecake Day in the United States.

Cheesecakes are a dessert dish based around soft cheese. The cheese is usually on top of a bottom layer that is comprised of crushed biscuit (cookies), pastry or sponge, though other things, such as crushed Graham crackers, are also used. The cheese itself can be cream cheese, ricotta or quark. Cheesecakes can be baked, or simply assembled and chilled.

The flavourings and toppings of cheesecake can vary tremendously. The flavours and ingredients can be added to the cheesecake itself, or just used to top an ordinary, probably vanilla, cheesecake.

In this case cherries are used. Some cherries are more suitable for use in a dessert than others. Cherries would most commonly be used to top a plain cheesecake, and would be in a sauce.

Image: Creative Commons attribution licensed for commercial use https://www.flickr.com/photos/lehighvalleypa/ Lehigh Valley, PA

National Pecan Month

Markus Brunner, Germany

April is National Pecan Month in the United States.

Pecans are a type of hickory tree that is found in the southern U.S. and northern Mexico, and the fruit harvested from them is also called the pecan. Pecan trees are cultivated, primarily in Georgia, Texas and Mexico, and are one of the most recent domesticated crops, with commercial growing only starting in the late 19th century. Pecans were eaten for hundreds of years prior to that, of course, but these were wild pecans rather than domesticated.

Pecans, like many things called nuts, are not botanical nuts but actually a type of seed. They are a popular snack food and are also used in pecan pies, a traditional dish of the southern U.S. Like many nuts, both culinary and botanical, pecans contain a lot of useful nutrients.

National Soy Foods Month

Scott Bauer / Public domain

April is National Soy Foods Month in the United States.

Soy foods are derived from the soyabean (or soybean). Soyabeans are considered to be a complete protein, and are commonly used by vegetarians as a source of non-meat protein in dishes such as tofu. Tofu, whilst it is often used by vegetarians, is also common in the cooking of parts of Asia. Other uses include soy milk, a milk replacement used by vegetarians and the lactose intolerant, and are used in other dairy replacements. Another very common use for the soybean is in soya sauce.

Soyabeans are toxic in their raw form, so need processing before they can be eaten. They have a high protein component for a staple food, in their raw form, but they must be cooked in order to be eaten, which can greatly reduce their nutritional value. Of course, they don't technically have any nutritional value raw.

National Soft Pretzel Month

jlwelsh / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

April is National Soft Pretzel Month in the United States.

Pretzels are a baked product made from bread dough and commonly formed in a distinctive knot shape, although other shapes are also used. Pretzels are available in different types, but this is specifically for soft pretzels. Soft pretzels have a much more limited shelf life than hard pretzels and should be eaten shortly after preparation. Soft pretzels are a type that became popular in the United States.

Soft pretzels can also be covered in a variety of glazes and can be used for both sweet and savoury, depending on what they are made from, glazed with and served with. Soft pretzels have a more bread-like texture than the hard, crispy pretzels, and tend to be bigger.

National Licorice Day

April 12th is National Licorice Day in the United States.

Licorice, or liquorice, comes from the roots of the plant Glycyrrhiza glabra. A flavouring can be extracted from this root and candies made using this extract are known as black licorice in the US.

Although the flavour is most commonly extracted from the liquorice root, the roots can also be eaten by themselves, and there are some potentially healthy effects from doing so. There are many different sweets, or candies, made using liquorice root extract, with some of the most common being ropes, tubes and wheels; the names are descriptive of what they look like.

Pontefract Cakes are small, roughly circular confections named after the British town of Pontefract in West Yorkshire. Another variety is Liquorice Allsorts, with Bassett's being the most famous.

National Beer Day

Len Rizzi (photographer) / Public domain

April 7th is National Beer Day in the United States.

Beer is an alcoholic drink and is one of the oldest and most widely consumed of such, as well as being one of the most popular drinks of any kind in the world, only beaten by water and tea. There is some evidence of beer being made dating back 13,000 years with the clearest evidence dating back about 5,500.

Beer is brewed from cereal grains, with malted barley being the most common of such used, though others, such as rice, maize and wheat are also used. Flavouring agents of different kinds are also added to the drink. The cereal grains are added to water, along with yeast and, although water is itself flavourless, it also contains dissolved minerals, and these can influence how beer tastes.

Beer comes in a number of different types. These include ale, stout, porter, mild, pale ale, wheat beer and lager.

National Caramel Popcorn Day

April 6th is National Caramel Popcorn Day in the United States.

Popcorn is the expanded kernel of maize, a type of corn. The kernel expands when heated with a distinctive "pop," hence the name.

Popcorn by itself is a healthy snack, low in calories and fat, free of sugar and sodium and is high in dietary fibre and antioxidants, but often quite tasteless. To make it more interesting, quantities of other ingredients are mixed in to add flavour, which destroys much of the nutritional value.
Caramel popcorn, also called caramel corn, is popcorn that has been coated with sugar or molasses. A similar type is toffee popcorn. Needless to say, popcorn that has been coated in a sugar derivative is not the healthiest thing to eat - even if it does taste nice.

National Deep Dish Pizza Day

April 5th is National Deep Dish Pizza Day in the United States.

What is a deep dish pizza? Well, it is also sometimes called a Chicago-style pizza, though it is only one of several different types of pizza that were developed in Chicago. Though it seems impossible to accurately determined who invented the deep dish and when, it appears that it may have been created in the city in 1943 at the Pizzeria Uno.

The obvious difference between the deep dish pizza and the more normal thin crust is, of course, the crust is very deep. This results in a pizza that more closely resembles a pie than it does a flatbread. Similarly, it is cooked in a steel pan more closely related to a cake or pie tin than it is to a pizza pan. The crust is pressed up to the side of the dish, which allows a thick layer of toppings to be added. With the pizza being deeper, it takes longer to cook than a regular one.

L. W. Yang from Los Angeles, California, USA / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

National Raisin and Spice Bar Day

April 5th is National Raisin and Spice Bar Day in the United States.

Raisin and spice bars are a snack bar that isn't too difficult to make. Raisins are a type of dried grape; the exact type varies depending on the country, as some countries have different definitions on just what sort of grape makes a raisin, but is often used just to refer to a dark coloured large grape.

Spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and cloves are often used in sweet recipes, not just savoury, so the use of spices in a sweet item is rather common.

This can be made as quite a healthy snack that isn't too difficult a recipe to do, so it can be useful to make and have around.

National Burrito Day

Infrogmation of New Orleans / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

National Burrito Day is celebrated on the first Thursday of April, which means that the actual date it is celebrated changes from year to year.

The burrito, a name that means "little donkey" in Spanish, is a Mexican and Tex-Mex dish that is made by wrapping a flour tortilla into a cylindrical shape around a variety of different ingredients. The burrito's ends are tucked in, making the cylinder enclosed, so it can often be eaten by hand. However, burritos can also be covered in a sauce, in which case they are eaten with a knife and fork.

Burritos can be filled with different ingredients. Meats such as beef, chicken and pork are common, with rice often used as a filler. Other ingredients, such as refried beans and vegetables can be added, as well as cheese and different sauces, such as guacamole and salsa. For vegetarian versions, the meats are omitted.