Food History - March
FOOD HISTORY - March
March 1 – National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day
1989 - A 75 year-long ban on beer was lifted this day in Iceland.
March 2 – National Banana Cream Pie Day
1989 - A phone call to the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile begins a chain of events that results in an 11 day embargo of Chilean fruit. This anonymous phone call, along with another on March 9, warns that Red Flame grapes en route to the U.S. have been injected with cyanide. Over two million crates of Chilean fruit are impounded, resulting in 20,000 Chilean food-worker jobs lost. Consumers in the U.S. and several other countries stop eating grapes of any kind for a month. In the end, however, no real evidence of contamination is ever found.
March 3 - National Mulled Wine Day
1879 - Elmer McCollum was born. He was a chemist who discovered vitamins A, B and D.
March 4 – National Pound Cake Day
1792 - Oranges were supposedly introduced to Hawaii.
March 5 – National Cheese Doodle Day
1893 - Emmett J. Culligan was born. He was the founder of the water treatment company that carries his name.
March 6 – National Frozen Food Day
1930 - Retail frozen foods (fruit, vegetables, meat and fish) go on sale for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. Clarence Birdseye had developed the method used to successfully freeze foods on a commercial scale.
March 7 – National Crown Roast of Pork Day
1849 - Luther Burbank was born. An American horticulturist, he developed many new varieties of fruit and vegetables, including the Burbank Potato, the Shasta Daisy, over 100 varieties of plums and prunes and 10 varieties of berries.
March 8 – National Farmers’ Day
1992 - Christian K. Nelson, inventor of the Eskimo Pie, died at age 98.
March 9 – National Crabmeat Day
1839 - The Great Pastry War ended this day. A brief conflict began on November 30, 1838, between Mexico and France when a French pastry cook, Monsieur Remontel, claimed his shop in the Tacubaya district of Mexico City had been ruined by looting Mexican officers in 1828. He appealed to France’s King Louis-Philippe. Coming to its citizen’s aid, France demanded 600,000 pesos in damages. In addition to this amount, Mexico had defaulted on millions of dollars worth of loans from France. An ultimatum to pay was given to Mexico, or the French would demand satisfaction. When the payment was not forthcoming, the king sent a fleet to declare a blockade of all Mexican ports from Yucatán to the Rio Grande, to bombard the Mexican fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, and to seize the port of Veracruz. Virtually the entire Mexican Navy was captured at Veracruz by December 1838. Mexico, in turn, declared war on France. Through the mediation of Great Britain the French were finally promised payment of 600,000 pesos for the damages. They finally withdrew on March 9, 1839.
March 10 – National Blueberry Popover Day
1867 - Lillian D. Wald was born. A scientist and nurse, she helped initiate the enactment of pure food laws in the U.S.
March 11 – National Oatmeal-Nut Waffle Day
1791 - Samuel Mulliken of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania received a patent for a machine to thresh corn and grain.
March 12 – National Baked Scallops Day
1930 - Mahatma Gandhi began his march to the coastal village of Dandi, to protest the British salt monopoly.
March 13 – National Coconut Torte Day
1764 - Charles Grey, 2nd Earl, was born. Earl Grey was given the recipe for Earl Grey Tea by a Chinese man with whom he was friends.
March 14 – National Potato Chip Day
1958 - ‘Tequila’ by The Champs is #1 on the charts
March 15 – National Pears Helene Day
1980 - McDonald’s test marketed Chicken McNuggets in Knoxville, Tennessee. They are so popular that the company has to look for a second supplier.
March 16 – National Artichoke Hearts Day
1915 - Absinthe is outlawed in France and several other countries. Absinthe was a licorice/anise flavoured liqueur that contained wormwood and was 132 proof. The high-alcohol content, and the presence of the toxic oil thujone from the wormwood, seemed to cause hallucinations, convulsions, and severe mental problems amongst hard core absinthe drinkers. With the ban on Absinthe, its manufacturer, Henry-Louis Pernod, came out with a lower-alcohol, wormwood-free liqueur called ‘Pernod’ as a replacement.
March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day
1967 - Billy Corgan of the music group ‘Smashing Pumpkins’ was born.
March 18 – National Oatmeal Cookie Day
1863 - Women rioted in Salisbury, North Carolina, to protest the lack of flour and salt in the Confederacy.
March 19 – National Agriculture Day
1942 - Clinton Hart Merriam died. A biologist, he studied the effects of using birds to control agricultural pests. He also helped found the National Geographic Society and what is now known as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
March 20 – National Ravioli Day
1727 - Sir Isaac Newton died. As legend would have it, an apple falling on his head inspired his theory of universal gravity. The apple in question is thought to have been the green skinned ‘Flower of Kent’ variety.
March 21 – National French Bread Day
1984 - A section of Central Park is renamed ‘Strawberry Fields’ to honour John Lennon, a former member of the famous rock group, Beatles, who was gunned down in New York City.
March 22 – National Bavarian Crepes Day
1841 - The Englishman, Orlando Jones, had cornstarch patented.
March 23 – National Chip and Dip Day
1912 - The Dixie Cup was developed by Lawrence Luellen and Hugh Moore. The name came from a line of dolls made by the Dixie Doll Company.
March 24 – National Chocolate Covered Raisins Day
1989 - The worst oil spill in U.S. history occurred as the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, leaking 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water. The effects on wildlife and fish were devastating.
March 25 – National Lobster Newburg Day
1914 - Norman Ernest Borlaug was born. An American agronomist who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to overcome world hunger, he developed the wheat/rye hybrid called ‘triticale’, that had a higher yield and protein content.
March 26 - National Nougat Day
1753 - Benjamin Thompson of Woburn, Massachusetts (and later Count von Rumford) was born. He was an American physician who invented the percolator, the pressure cooker and the modern kitchen stove. He is also credited with creating the dessert, Baked Alaska.
March 27 – National Spanish Paella Day
1923 - Sir James Dewar died. He invented the ‘Dewar Flask’ - the original ‘thermos bottle’.
March 28 – National Black Forest Cake Day
1897 - Victor Mills was born. He was a chemical engineer who worked for Proctor & Gamble. He improved Duncan Hines cake mixes and Jif peanut butter (and also invented Pampers disposable diapers).
March 29 – National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day
1886 – Dr. John Pemberton created Coca-Cola.
March 30 – National Hot Dog Day
1987 – The ‘Sunflowers’ painting by Vincent Van Gogh is sold to a Japanese buyer for $39.9 million. Some experts have claimed that it is possibly a fake. On this day in 1853, Vincent Van Gogh was born as well.
March 31 – National Oranges and Lemons Day
1989 – The first shipment of Japanese blowfish (tora fugu) arrived on this day In New York. Chefs from Japanese restaurants had been trying for a while to persuade the FDA to allow them to import and serve fogu. The FDA finally relented. However, these chefs had to attend special classes to protect their customers from poisoning.
