If you’ve been celebrating the food holidays routinely, National Fruit Cocktail Day on May 13th may be a way to improve the calorie count. Many of us have childhood memories of a dish of fruit cocktail regularly served with a meal.
Fruit cocktail consists of various kinds of fruit served in a liquid of its juices or syrup. While we purchase it in cans and individual serving cups, we can also make it fresh with berries and other fruits. Cafeterias serve fruit cocktail as a healthy fruit option in schools and at buffets, too.
Even though the word cocktail is in the name, fruit cocktail contains no alcohol. The term itself refers to a mixture and can be food or spirits. For example, the secondary definition of a cocktail is “An appetizer made by combining pieces of food, such as fruit or seafood.”
In the United States, the USDA stipulates that canned fruit cocktail must contain certain percentages of pears, grapes, cherries, peaches, and pineapples.
William Vere Cruess of the University of California, Berkeley, and also Herbert Gray of the Barron-Gray Packing Company, San Jose, California have both been credited with the invention of fruit cocktail.
HOW TO OBSERVE #FruitCocktailDay
Serve some fruit cocktail with your meals or snack to celebrate. You could even make your own. Another way to celebrate is by developing your own. Be sure to share your favorite combination using #FruitCocktailDay to post on social media.
Each year on April 25th each year, National Zucchini Bread Day encourages bakers to make this delicious bread.
Many explorers who came to the Americas brought back what they considered strange foods, including the zucchini. The zucchini eventually found its way to Italy, where it was named zucchino. Native Americans referred to zucchini as “something eaten raw.” However, we all know that zucchini tastes best cooked, especially in bread.
Zucchini bread is similar to other quick breads like banana bread. Other quick breads you might be familiar with making include muffins, scones, and biscuits. When baked, Zucchini and banana bread go into the oven in loaf pans. When finished, slice and serve with butter, peanut butter, jam, or just plain.
Fat – Bakers use shortening, butter, margarine, or vegetable oils depending on the texture they wish to achieve. Follow recipes and use only the fat called for to achieve the desired results.
Sugar – Granular sugar, brown sugar, and some sugar substitutes are used. Many bakers add fruit for sweetness, substituting a portion of the sugar in the recipe.
Eggs – As an emulsifier and a binding ingredient, eggs add volume and texture to quick bread
Flour – Most bakers use all-purpose flour, but other recipes will use alternative flours. Always follow the recipe because other ingredients have been adjusted to improve texture when using an alternative flour.
Liquid – Usually, milk or water moisten the mixture, activate the gluten in the flour, and dissolve the sugar.
Leavening agent – Either baking powder or baking soda + an acid (such as cream of tartar) are used. Baking powder is baking soda with the acid already added.
Flavoring ingredient – Bakers incorporate a variety of spices, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and extracts. Each one complements the flavor of the main ingredient. In a quick bread, bakers often use vanilla to enhance the flavor.
When mixing your ingredients, be sure to follow the recipe instructions. Over mixing prevents the bread from rising while baking causing the bread to be dense.
Celebrate the day by making fresh zucchini bread for yourself. Dip into your freezer stash from last year’s bumper crop and bake the day away. Be sure to plant more zucchini so you can celebrate this day next year, too!
Use #NationalZucchiniBreadDay to share on social media.
On National Ravioli Day, celebrate a pasta that is fun and versatile. Observed on March 20th each year, pasta lovers dive in on this food holiday.
Ravioli are a traditional type of Italian filled pasta, made up of a filling sealed between two layers of thin egg pasta dough. Imagine a small meatball tucked, snug inside two cozy layers of delicious pasta dough. That’s basically what ravioli is. Although, a variety of fillings from cheesy to meaty take up that cozy spot in the dough. And the ravioli are usually served in either a broth or with a pasta sauce. A variety of filling recipes are available from cheesy to meaty.
While ravioli often serves as the main course, it can also be a side dish or even an appetizer. Many popular recipes bake or deep fry the ravioli. With chocolate added to the pasta or cream cheese stuffing and a caramel sauce, the dish quickly becomes a dessert!
Ravioli can be homemade or may be purchased fresh or frozen in grocery stores. In the United States, Chef Boyardee popularized the canned ravioli. This ravioli is filled with either beef or processed cheese and served in a tomato, tomato-meat or tomato-cheese sauce.
We turn to St. Louis, Missouri, to learn about the toasted ravioli. By accident, a ravioli fell into the fryer at Oldani’s back in the 1940s. And as with accidents, the crisp ravioli earned a place on the menu. Or so the story goes. If so, it’s a delicious one.
Ravioli always sparks an appetite, so be sure to mix up your favorite sauce and pasta combinations. Try your hand at homemade. Make it a family affair.
On March 16th, National Artichoke Hearts Day offers a tasty option to add flavor to any dish.
According to the California Artichoke Advisory Board, artichokes are a good source of antioxidants, vitamin C, folate, and magnesium. The antioxidants in artichokes are very good for your liver and help promote healthy skin. Artichokes are also high in fiber, calcium, and protein while low in calories. These reasons, plus being fat-free and cholesterol-free, make artichokes a healthy and delicious food to celebrate!
The total antioxidant capacity of an artichoke flower head is one of the highest reported for vegetables.
The fleshy base of the artichoke is perhaps the most enjoyably edible part of this oddly-shaped vegetable.
California is known as the artichoke capital of the world. They supply nearly 100% of North American fresh artichokes.
While artichokes may be a little difficult to prepare, you can find artichoke hearts packed in vinegar, oil, or marinade. Don’t let the artichoke heart fool you. They’re more versatile than they seem. Eat them as a snack or add them to dips or sauces. They also make excellent toppings on pizzas and flatbread. Toss them into the skillet for a savory sauté or infuse them into a broth. Artichoke hearts just might turn into a healthy addition to your cooking routine!
Pick up some fresh artichokes or canned artichoke hearts to make your favorite recipes. You can even test out a few new recipes with friends and family. Be sure to save and share your best ones. We offer a few techniques for you to try with your artichoke hearts, too.
Roast artichoke hearts with your potatoes and carrots. Season them lightly with olive oil and salt and pepper.
Try grilling fresh artichoke hearts for a smoky addition to your meal.
Create an artichoke salad or an artichoke dressing.
Make an artichoke heart and grilled cheese sandwich with smoked provolone.
February 23rd annually recognizes a well-known food holiday, National Banana Bread Day. A moist, sweet, cake-like quick bread, banana bread is made with fully ripe, mashed bananas. Some recipes call for yeast, and then the finished banana bread is sliced, toasted and spread with butter.
With the popularization of baking soda and baking powder in the 1930s banana bread first became a standard feature of American cookbooks. It appeared in Pillsbury’s 1933 Balanced Recipes cookbook, too. Banana bread later gained further acceptance with the release of the original Chiquita Banana’s Recipe Book in 1950.
Despite the banana’s arrival in the United States in the 1870s, it took a while before they appeared as an ingredient in desserts.
Early Banana Bread
One early recipe came from The Vienna Model Bakery. It advertised banana bread as something new in the April 21, 1893, edition of St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A new restaurant/bakery chain owned by Gaff, Fleischmann & Company, The Viena Model Bakery was known for its baked goods and was likely one of the first to produce banana bread in the United States. The recipe was made with banana flour, which is made by drying strips of the fruit, then grinding it to a powder. This process had long been used in the West Indies.
In Hawaii during World War I, a surplus of bananas resulted from very few ships available to export the fruit. To prevent waste, alternative uses for bananas were developed. For example, bakeries started incorporating the fruit into their bread.
This recipe was printed in The Maui News on April 12, 1918, for banana bread: 2/3 banana 1/3 flour Yeast, coconut milk or water There was also rationing of staple food items such as flour. Banana flour was a suggested substitute. It was touted as a health food and recommended for a vegetarian diet.
This, of course, is not the quick bread we know today. A recipe submitted by Mrs. Dean in the February 18, 1918, issue of The Garden Island paper for a banana muffin might more closely resemble the quick bread we think of today.
1 cup cornmeal 3-1/2 teaspoons of baking powder 2 tablespoons of sugar 1 sifted banana 3/4 cup rye flour 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup milk 1 egg 1 tablespoon Crisco Mix dry ingredients, add banana, milk and egg and Crisco.
Quick Bread and Muffin
The difference between a quick bread and a muffin in baking has a lot to do with the type of fat and how it is mixed creating a different crumb or texture to the bread.
In 1927, Unifruit (a wholesale produce company) offered a free cookbook called From the Tropics to Your Table. The book offered recipes full of bananas as ingredients including banana muffins and breads. This little cookbook would have been handy during the Great Depression which was just around the corner. At the time, families utilized every scrap of food, including overripe bananas. They cooked overripe bananas, as well as other fruits and vegetables, into breads, stews and other dishes when flavor and texture were not as appealing raw.
Bake your favorite version of banana bread to celebrate. With so many varieties to try – banana nut, chocolate banana and more – you can make more than one! Invite someone to join you or give a loaf or two away. The celebration is just too good not to share! We like ours warm from the oven with butter!
Use #NationalBananaBreadDay to post on social media.
