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June 12 is National Jerky Day

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Today is National Jerky Day, created in 2012 by the Wisconsin Beef Council to bring awareness to the history, nutritional benefits and status of meat snacks as the “fourth-largest-grossing sector in the overall salty-snack category.”

For 2014’s celebration, Jack Link’s beef jerky company built a replica of Mount Rushmore, covered it in 1,600 pounds of jerky and displayed it in New York City’s Columbus Circle. They called the monument “Meat Rushmore.”

national jerky day

Meat Rushmore

Preserving meat via drying and salting dates back at least as far as Ancient Egypt. It became popular in Spain in the 1500s when conquistadors brought it back from South America. The name “jerky” is derived from the Native American Quechua term “ch’arki” (dried meat).

Today, there are hundreds of varieties: turkey, chicken, duck, buffalo, alligator, ostrich, kangaroo, camel, rabbit, python, antelope, rattlesnake, elk, venison, wild boar, alpaca, and pheasant in flavors like ginger-lime, ghost pepper, butter mesquite, and honey sriracha.

Shark, salmon, tuna, and trout are available for pescetarian jerky fans. One purveyor offers gluten-free buffalo and elk jerky. Another offers pineapple jerky for herbivores. (Caution: Manufactured in a plant that processes meat and meat-like  products.)

One variety that hasn’t survived is Zombie Jerky. From the tone of some of its Amazon reviews, it may have, in fact, consisted of the undead. It’s a shame the company went under after its epic struggle to get its packaging approved. The USDA found the original description of the main ingredient, “naturally occurring zombies,” factually inaccurate, objected to “teriyucki” as a confusing flavor, and rejected the assurance that the product is “mutagen-free” and “doesn’t turn you into a zombie” as potentially misleading. (Everyone knows mutagens are a tasty side-benefit of jerky!)

national jerky day

Are you trying to cut back on coffee but need a morning pick-me-up? Perky Jerky is marinated with guarana seeds, which have twice the caffeine of coffee beans, but is all-natural and therefore healthier for you, right? Well, coffee beans are natural, too, and have the advantage of containing little to no jerky, as far as we know.

In 2023, Meat+Poultry reported on a new cannabis-infused jerky created by The Good Shroom Co:

OG Jerk contains 60 grams of beef jerky (2 x 30 gram vacuum sealed packages) infused with a total of 9 mg of THC (2 x 4.5 mg of THC vacuum sealed packages), which permits the consumer to consume in doses accordingly and enjoy beef jerky in the process.

We applaud the genius of a product made to simultaneously create and cure the munchies. In February of 2025, the Canadian company changed its name to Mercanto Holdings. Some corporate buzzkill must have said it sounds more legit. At least its Canadian stock exchange designation will remain MUSH, so there’s that.

Alas, even OG Jerk couldn’t make us hungry enough to try Earthworm Jerky. This Amazon reviewer takes us on a stream-of-consciousness rollercoaster ride.

It reminds me of an old joke. One woman says to the other, “The food here is terrible!” And the other says, “Yes, and such small portions!”

However you decide to celebrate, have a happy National Jerky Day!

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National Doughnut Day

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Today is National Doughnut Day, also known as National Donut Day, celebrated in the U.S. on the first Friday of June.

In 1938, the Chicago chapter of the Salvation Army, an international charitable organization, hosted the first Doughnut Day event to raise funds for the needy during the Great Depression while honoring the women who had served doughnuts to soldiers during World War I.

After the U.S. entered the war in 1917, the Salvation Army conducted a fact-finding mission to France and concluded that American enlisted men would benefit from baked goods, writing paper, and mending services provided by canteens (called “huts”) set up in nearby abandoned buildings. Four of the six staff assigned to each hut were women, to help “mother” the men.

The reconnaissance team had failed to consider the difficulty of baking under those conditions. A couple of the 250 volunteers came up with the idea of frying doughnuts, which would eliminate the need for ovens. They were a big hit. Soon, the soldiers began to refer to the women as “Doughnut Girls.”

While the origin of National Doughnut Day is all but forgotten, bakeries across the nation continue the tradition by offering a free doughnut to customers today. Some places like Dunkin’ Donuts offer a free doughnut with the purchase of a drink, which is, of course, not free at all, but who’s going to complain? It’s still an excuse to have a doughnut!

Happy National Doughnut Day!

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May 27 is National Grape Popsicle Day

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grape popsicle dayToday is National Grape Popsicle Day. In 1905, 11-year-old Frank Epperson was sitting on his porch, stirring powdered drink mix into water, when he was called inside and forgot to bring the cup with him.

His hometown of San Francisco, CA, was hit with record-low temperatures that night. When Epperson ventured outside the next morning, he discovered that the drink had frozen to the stick, creating a tasty ice pop.

In 1923, Epperson began to sell the treat he called “a frozen drink on a stick” at Neptune Beach Amusement Park in Alameda, CA. Children loved them, and parents were happy that the stick helped prevent messes and gooey hands.

In 1924, Epperson applied for and was granted a patent for the frozen confectionery, which he called the “Epsicle.” His children called it “Pop’s sicle, ” which inspired him to change the name to “Popsicle.”

Not long afterward, Epperson sold the patent to pay debts and regretfully missed out on the financial success of his creation. “I was flat and had to liquidate all my assets,” he later said. “I haven’t been the same since.”

We’re not sure why this holiday occurs on May 27th, a date that doesn’t correspond to Epperson’s birthday or the day the patent was filed or granted. Nor can we explain why today is devoted to the grape variety alone. (Of more than two billion Popsicles sold each year, cherry is the most popular flavor.) We did uncover an interesting fact:

Do you remember the Popsicle with two sticks? It was introduced during the Great Depression so two children could split it for 5¢, the same price as a single stick. It was discontinued in 1987 because parents complained it was hard to break and too messy for one child to eat without dripping.

All this time, we’ve been thinking it was just out of stock….

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May 17 is National Walnut Day

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national walnut dayToday is National Walnut Day, created in 1949 by the Walnut Marketing Board, now known as the California Walnut Board. Supposedly, in March of 1958, Senator William Knowland proposed the holiday, which President Dwight D. Eisenhower later affirmed.

I spent an hour trying to confirm that. I found no such proclamation or proposal beyond publication in the Congressional Record of remarks Knowland gave on March 21, 1958. It has nothing to do with walnuts. (You could check it out for yourself, but I don’t recommend it.)

It looks like a feat of marketing by the Board that has paid dividends in the pages of Google results that parrot the story as truth. But it gets better: the California Walnut Board cites a holiday blog as the source of its information. It’s the circle of life online: an ourobouros of unreliable sources forever (happily) eating its own tail. But I digress.

Most walnuts come from the Persian or English tree, Juglans regia, originally grown in Asia and now cultivated around the world. The lesser-known eastern black walnut tree, Juglans nigra, and butternut or white walnut tree, Juglans cinerea, are native to eastern North America.

According to A Latin Dictionary, the genus gets its name from the Latin word for walnut tree,  jūglans, which is a contraction of  Jōvis glans, which translates to “nut of [the god] Jupiter.” Perhaps that explains why many sites claim the arginine found in walnuts dilates blood vessels and increases blood flow, causing erections. (Don’t munch a handful before a business meeting.)

Black walnut has been hailed by some as a miracle cure because of its alleged ability to kill a parasite that is supposedly responsible for cancer. No word on whether it works: We can’t get anyone who used it to answer our calls.

In China, walnuts are prized for a different reason. In 2012, Reuters reported that a secondary market in “cultural playthings” had emerged as a result of weak or negative returns in the traditional stock market.

Once the toys of China’s imperial court, walnuts have become popular among the wealthy, who see them as a status symbol as well as an investment. They are collected in pairs and rotated in one’s hand to improve circulation.

Collector Kou Baojun in Beijing told Reuters that the larger, older, and more symmetrical the walnuts are, the more highly they are valued and can cost tens of thousands of dollars. He owns more than 30 pairs, most of which are over a century old and have become burnished from years of being polished in the palm.

“Look how well these have aged,” Kou said. “Playing with these kinds of walnuts isn’t for ordinary people.”

Grab a pair and have a happy National Walnut Day!

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