National Mint Julep Day

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May 30th is National Mint Julep Day in the United States.

Mint julep is an alcoholic cocktail with a bourbon base, that is associated with the American South. The earliest reference to a mint julep is in 1784, when it was recommended as a medicinal drink, for relieving sickness of the stomach, retching and difficulty with swallowing. It is not known precisely when or where the drink originated, but it is believed to be in the Southern United States in the 18th century.

The standard ingredients are 6cl of bourbon whisky, 4 mint leaves (different types can be used, but spearmint is the most common in the American South), 1 teaspoon powdered sugar and 2 teaspoons of water. It is prepared in a highball glass.

National Wine Day

May 25th is National Wine Day in the United States.

Wine is an alcoholic drink made from, usually, fermented grapes, although other fruits can be used (drinks made with other fruits are often called by other names, though, such as cider for apples).

Wine has been consumed for a long time, dating back over 8,000 years. It is often associated with religious ceremonies. Wine is produced in many countries around the world, although some have a better reputation for the quality of their product than others (you can get English wine, but it is rarely considered to be quality) and there are different colours available, such as white, red and rose, which are the most common.

Some wines are sparkling, with champagne, which can only be produced in a specific region of France using specific grapes, being the best known of such.

National Walnut Day

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May 17th is National Walnut Day in the United States.

The walnut is found on a number of trees that are also commonly called walnuts. Like many nuts, it is not a true botanical nut, but a culinary one, and is the edible seed of a drupe. Once the stone fruit has ripened, the husk can be removed, revealing the shell of the walnut. The shell is also removed, revealing the meat of the walnut.

The two most common walnut trees grown for their seeds are the English walnut, which actually originated in Persia and is also called the Persian walnut, and the black walnut native to North America. Most commercial walnut trees are hybrids of the English walnut. Today, China produces about half of the commercially produced walnuts.

Walnuts are frequently sold in their shells, but are also sold without. They can be eaten on their own, with raw, pickled and toasted being the most common - pickled walnuts, which are pickled in their shells, are often sold at Christmas. Walnuts are also used as ingredients in many other dishes. Like most nuts, walnuts contain lots of nutritional value.

National Mimosa Day

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May 16th is National Mimosa Day in the United States.

Though the mimosa is a type of tree, in this case it is referring to a drink, specifically a cocktail. The cocktail is, however, named after the tree, which has yellow flowers, as the drink is also yellow. Mimosas are made by combining champagne, or other sparkling wine, with chilled citrus juice, usually orange juice, and it is served in a champagne flute, sometimes with an orange twist. The proportions of wine to juice vary.

Though wine and fruit juice have been combined for centuries, the origin of the mimosa is not known for certain. Mimosas are often served at brunches, weddings and as part of business or first-class service. A similar drink is the Buck's Fizz, which is a cocktail that was invented slightly earlier and has definite proportions, twice as much champagne as orange juice.

World Whisky Day

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World Whisky Day is on the third Saturday in May.

This day celebrates whisky, an alcoholic drink made from fermented grain mash. It is a distilled drink and there are many different ways to make it, with different grains such as barley, corn, rye and wheat which may or may not be malted. Whisky may be distilled more than once and after distillation it is usually aged in wooden casks; the longer a whisky is aged, the better it is.

There are a lot of different types of whisky. One of the most famous is, of course, Scotch whisky, which naturally comes from Scotland. Irish whisky is another well-known type and that of course comes from Ireland. Bourbon whiskey is one of the most famous American types.

Even within the different types there can be a lot of variation. Whiskies can be single, which is distilled at a single distillery, or blended, which is distilled at more than one then blended together. There are malt whiskies and unmalted, different lengths of aging, different types of grain used and a lot of regulations as to just what particular name can be applied to a whisky depending on how it was made, what with, where it was made and how long it was aged.

National Pizza Party Day

Valerio Capello at English Wikipedia / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

May 15th is National Pizza Party Day in the United States.

Pizzas originated in Italy, though they have since spread all around the world, becoming one of the most popular fast food items, and most of them consist of a flattened base of leavened wheat dough on which tomatoes, cheese and other ingredients are added. The simplest pizza is the margherita, which is just cheese and tomato as well as some herbs.

Not every pizza is on a flattened base. The calzone, for instance, is a folded pizza, and there are other types such as the deep-dish pizza which is commonly associated with Chicago. The traditional Neapolitan pizza is the origin of the New York-style pizza; that and Chicago being the two primary types of American pizza. Other ingredients to make the base have been used as well, not just wheat dough.

A pizza party isn't a way of cooking a pizza; it's a way of eating eat. One that just requires a number of pizzas and a number of people to eat them in its most basic form.

International Hummus Day

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May 13th is International Hummus Day.

Hummus means 'chickpeas,' which is an abbreviation of the full Arabic name, 'chickpeas in tahini,' is a dish used as a dip, spread or savoury dish that is popular in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine, though it is also commonly found in other countries as a dip. Unsurprisingly, hummus is made from chickpeas and tahini.

It's not clear precisely where hummus originated, though the ingredients have been combined together and used in the Levant for centuries; the earliest known recipe dates from a 13th century Cairo cookbook. Hummus, when served as a dip, is commonly scooped out and eaten with flatbread, or pita bread. Many other ingredients can be added to the basic ones, creating a dish with a range of flavours, and often a range of spiciness, even though it is traditionally a mild dish.

National Fruit Cocktail Day

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May 13th is National Fruit Cocktail Day in the United States.

Fruit cocktail most often refers to a type of fruit salad that is typically bought canned. Fruit salad is a sweet dish served chilled that consists of chopped fresh fruit that is mixed together, often with such as lemon juice to delay such as apples from turning brown, which they do when exposed to air. Pretty much any fruit can be added to a fruit salad.

Fruit cocktail gains its name, not because it's a cocktail, but from the other definition of the word, which refers to an appetiser created by combining pieces of food such as fruit or seafood. In the United States, in order for a canned food to be called fruit cocktail, it must have specific percentage distributions of diced yellow peaches, pears and pineapple, whole seedless grapes and cherry halves, which must be any light sweet or artificially coloured red. These are pretty specific. This is then tinned with a syrup. Of course, the same dish can be made by simply using fresh fruit.

National Moscato Day

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May 9th is National Moscato Day in the United States.

Moscato, more properly known as Moscato d'Asti, is a sparkling white wine made from Muscat à Petits Grains, a white wine grape of Greek origin and part of the Muscat family. Moscato is a sweet, low-alcohol wine that is considered to be a dessert wine - sweet wines normally served with desserts.

Moscato d'Asti is made by small producers in small batches in the town of Asti in Montferrat, Piedmont, Italy. Records indicate that Moscato d'Asti has been made in Piedmont since at least the 14th century and Moscato bianco is considered to be one of the oldest grapes grown in that area.

National Strawberry Month

May is National Strawberry Month in the United States.

The strawberry, like so many fruit with berry in the name, is not actually a berry in botanical terms. Instead, it is an aggregate accessory fruit, composed of many smaller parts that comprise the larger fruit. They have a characteristic aroma, a bright colour (in most cases) and are sweet. Strawberries are a popular dish, and can be eaten raw and cold or used cooked and used in jams and preserves.

Strawberries are a comparatively late fruit to be cultivated domestically, with the first one only dating back to the 18th century, compared to others which have been consumed for thousands of years. This is of the type called the garden strawberry, which is a cultivated species. Strawberries that were eaten prior to this are known as wild strawberries, which included some cultivated selections of the plant.

National Salsa Month

May is National Salsa Month in the United States.

Salsa, which literally means "sauce" in Spanish, is a term used to describe a variety of sauces found in Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine, which are more properly called salsa roja, salsa picante or salsa cruda, though there are even more varieties than this. The standard salsa is normally red, as they are frequently tomato based, but this is not always the case. Many salsas are spicy, but they range from essentially not to dangerous to eat.

Salsas can be quite liquid, where all the ingredients have been blended together, to quite chunky. There are many different ways of making salsa, and many different ingredients that can be added, with peppers, of whatever type, being a popular addition. These can be standard peppers or spicier ones such as chillies of many types. Some salsas are even sweet. The most common types of salsa commercially available in jars tend to be salsa cruda or pico de gallo.

Salsa is not just for chips and dips.

National Candied Orange Peel Day

Candied orange peels in their syrup By User:Manutius, july 17, 2005

May 4th is National Candied Orange Peel Day in the United States.

Candied orange peel is a specific type of candied fruit. Candied fruit, which is also called crystallised fruit or glacé fruit, is a way of preserving fruit. This can be done with the whole fruit, pieces of fruit, or, in this case, pieces of the peel. The peel is placed in heated sugar syrup, and then left. The fruit absorbs the sugar and the syrup absorbs the moisture which prevents the growth of the microorganisms that cause the fruit to go off. This process can take anything from a few days to several months, and the resulting candied peel can last a year or more.

Oranges are one of the most common fruits to have their peels candied. Normally, when eating oranges, the peel is discarded, but this is an alternative use for it (although, if the fruit is waxed, the wax needs removing first). The candied peel can either be eaten as is, or used in cooking, such as in cakes.

National Salad Month

May is National Salad Month in the United States.

What is a salad? Well, the name comes from the French salade and the Latin salata meaning salty. The word dates back to the 14th century. Salad greens themselves have been eaten with meals since Greek and Roman times. There are different types of salads; green salads are comprised of leafy green vegetables, vegetable salads use other raw vegetables, fruit salads are made from fruit, main course salads tend to incorporate things other than vegetables and bound salads have a dressing incorporated in them. Then there are other dishes with salad in the name, such as the potato salad, which itself is often included in other salads. There can be quite a bit of overlap between salad types, and they can range from appetisers to starters to main meals to side dishes to desserts.

National Egg Month

May is National Egg Month in the United States.

When the term "egg" is used, what is most commonly thought of is the product of the domesticated chicken, which is the most common type of egg eaten, but there are many others, from much smaller to much bigger, including fish eggs such as caviar.

Eggs are a versatile food that are very high in protein, and they are used in many different dishes. The eggs can be cooked themselves and in a variety of different ways, such as boiled, poached, fried and scrambled, which are some of the most common ways. They can even be eaten raw, though that can be problematical. As well as being eaten by themselves, they are also used as ingredients in many other dishes, both sweet and savoury. The entire egg can be used, or just the yolk or the white. Eggs are a very versatile food.

National Chocolate Custard Month

May is National Chocolate Custard Month in the United States.

The name custard covers a wide range of dishes that are based on a mixture of milk or cream and egg yolk that has been cooked. The consistency of custard can vary tremendously, from a thin, pourable liquid to a thick cream. It is most commonly used as a sauce to pour on other dishes, but it can be a dish in itself. Whilst predominately sweet, there are some custards that are used as a base for savoury dishes.

As well as the base ingredients, others can be added to, to change the consistency of the custard, to add a flavour, or to make a complete custard-based dish. In this case, what is added is chocolate flavouring. The custard can be served hot, or it can be frozen to make a dish similar to ice cream.

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