National Gingersnap Day: July 1 / Food Holiday

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

How is this Holiday celebrated?

This holiday is celebrated by sharing gingersnap cookies! Gingersnaps may be eaten as snacks on their own, or used to top desserts such as ice cream, gelato or mousse.

► Host a milk and gingersnap cookie party

► Host a cookie baking party and make gingersnap cookies

► July is hot in the U.S. so host an ice cream social and serve gingersnap cookies to go with it.

► It's Bibleschool for many churches so bake up and serve gingersnaps for the kids.

► Serve candied ginger along side gingersnaps. Candied ginger is the root cooked in sugar until soft, and is a type of confectionery.

Pictured Above:

Homemade gingersnap cookies made at the home of gone-ta-pott.com. These cookies were still hot on the plate when the coffee was pored. I think it made for a wonderful breakfast in celebration of National Gingersnap Day.

Origin of this holiday

Our research did not find the creator, or the origin of this day. We did however find that this holiday has been celebrated for years. There is plenty of documentation to support that this holiday does indeed exist. This holiday is referred to as a "National" day. However, we did not find any congressional records or presidential proclamations for this day. Even though we didn't, this is still a holiday that's celebrated.

The history of the gingersnap itself goes back for centuries. Cookies, breads and other baked goods were commonly flavored with spices such as ginger in the middle ages-

Now let's learn: Global terminology

In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand and most of the former British Empire, they are often called ginger nuts. Ginger nuts are not to be confused with pepper nuts, which are a variety of gingerbread, somewhat smaller in diameter, but thicker.

Scandinavian ginger nuts, also called ginger bread or "brunkage" in Danish (literally meaning "brown biscuits"), pepparkakor in Swedish, piparkakut in Finnish, piparkūkas in Latvian, piparkoogid in Estonian and pepperkaker in Norwegian (literally, pepper cookies), are rolled quite thin (often under 3 mm (1/8-inch) thick), and cut into shapes; they are smooth and are usually much thinner and hence crisper (and in some cases, more strongly flavoured) than most global varieties. Cloves, cinnamon and cardamom are important ingredients of these, and the actual ginger taste is not prominent. Allspice was used formerly to season ginger biscuits, but cloves replaced it later.

In the United States, the usual term is ginger snaps, and they are generally round drop cookies, usually between 3 mm (1/8-inch) and 6 mm (1/4-inch) thick, with prominent cracks in the top surface. One recipe for these cookies contains maple syrup.

Drop cookies are made from a relatively soft dough that is dropped by spoonfuls onto the baking sheet. During baking, the mounds of dough spread and flatten.

We found recognition about this holiday from:

Calendar sites and personal Internet sites that blog and share information about this holiday.

Eatocracy.cnn.com tell us "While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday. Oh, snap! - July 1 is National Gingersnap Day. This is one chewy cookie with an international reputation. Famous for its cinnamon color, crackled top, snackalicious texture and spicy bite, gingersnaps suit even the pickiest of cookie aficionados."

Mahalo.com says: "Major celebrations of National Gingersnap Day can be hard to find, but there may be regional celebrations going on. Local bakeries and food stores may hold gingersnap sales or bake up a special cookie for the occasion. In addition, manufacturers of gingersnaps may hold celebrations of some sort. You can celebrate by enjoying some of the cookies yourself, or by baking up a batch to share...etc"

Cdkitchen.com says: "These tasty cookies have a sweet but spicy flavor. They are made with molasses and have ground ginger as flavoring. There are many varieties of ginger snaps - from the American version (which is more of a spicy sugar cookie) to Scandinavian versions which are small, thin cookies....etc" See their list of recipes-

gardencountycooking.blogspot.com says: "Seeing that today is National Ginger Snap Day, I felt that it was only fitting that I post one of the most popular Ginger Snap recipes in the nation. Most of you are familiar with Blue Ribbon Baker Marjorie Johnson from Robbinsdale, Minnesota...etc"

This Food Holiday shares July 1 with.......

Second Half of the New Year Day, International Joke Day, Doctors Day (India, National Financial Freedom Day, Zip Code Day, Canada Day formerly Dominion Day, Independence Day (Burundi), Independence Day (Rwanda), Independence Day (Somalia), Republic Day (Ghana), July Morning tradition in Bulgaria, and Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day.

► More reasons to celebrate July 1 ► National Food Holiday Directory

The month of July is also named a National Month for... ► Hot Dogs

Resources, References & External Links

• This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses some material from Wikipedia/article © / and other related pages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie

• Top photo: gone-ta-pott.com