Not all the 365 food holidays inspire rush for ingredients

March 10
Monday Munch
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Turkey stew with potatoes, carrots and mushrooms. Dessert to be announced.

March 17
St. Patrick’s Day
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Corned beef and cabbage soup, oatmeal strawberry bars and ginger ale.

According to “Foodimentary: Celebrating 365 Food Holidays with Classic Recipes,” March 10 is Ranch Dressing Day. Whoopee!

With 365 days to cover, not all of these “holidays,” ranging from Peanut Butter Lover’s Day to Tater Tot Day, make one want to rush off to the grocery store for ingredients.

Wikipedia includes a fact about ranch dressing that should make us blink: In 1972, Clorox bought the Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing brand for $8 million. Clorox and salad dressing: What a combo!

Rest assured that when making fresh salad the volunteer cooks at the Charlotte Senior Center follow Oscar Wilde’s advice: “To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist — the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one’s vinegar.”

Go to the Charlotte Senior Center on March 17, and you can celebrate Eat Like the Irish Day with corned beef and cabbage soup.

Sláinte maith!

As early as the 11th century, there was mention of this Irish favorite. From the late 17th century until 1825, the beef-curing industry was the most important asset to Cork as they exported vast quantities of cured beef to Britain, Europe, America, Newfoundland and the West Indies.

President Grover Cleveland was born on March 18 and according to “Life is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days,” he “much preferred eating pickled herring and Swiss cheese instead of the French stuff” he was served at the White House.

President Ulysses Grant’s favorite pastime in what became the State Dining Room was shooting bread balls at his children, but his wife was determined to put that room to official use, and the presidential state dinner was born. Valentino Melah, a Sicilian trained in hotel kitchens, was in charge of Grant’s White House kitchen, where he often produced twenty-nine courses. Sometimes the courses numbered thirty-five.

The first State Dinner was held on December 11, 1874, with Grant welcoming King Kalākaua of the Kingdom of Hawai’i. The king brought two guards to stand on either side of his chair and a third, the cup bearer, made sure the food wasn’t poisoned.

Perhaps the most noteworthy meal served by the Grants was the wedding breakfast for their daughter, a meal including soft-shell crab on toast, chicken croquettes, beef tongue in aspic, woodcock and snipe, spring chicken, strawberries with cream, charlotte russe, Nesselrode pudding and blancmange.

Walt Whitman recited his poem “A Kiss to the Bride” at this event.

Think about this: A United States president asking a poet to grace his meal with a poem.

Rene Verdon, executive chef for the Kennedys, stayed on for LBJ, for a while. But after LBJ hosted a barbecue of beans, spareribs, cole slaw and beer at his Texas ranch for the West German chancellor, Verdon left in a huff, declaring no such food would appear at the White House: “You do not serve barbecued spare ribs at a banquet with the ladies in white gloves.”

Jimmy Carter hosted the biggest state dinner ever held. On March 26, 1979, celebrating the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, more than 1,300 guests sat down to enjoy Columbia River salmon, cheese straws, roast sirloin with spring vegetables and hazelnut mousse with petits fours.

Richard Nixon seems to be the champion of the state dinner, hosting more than 40. Later, expressing great disapproval of such fetes, Donald Trump hosted only two during his first term. His first state dinner was held in the Rose Garden, with a fiber rug laid over the grass. Diners ate sunchoke ravioli, Dover sole and apple pie à la mode.

Wikipedia provides a list of state dinners — Grant through Biden. Although it does not provide a description of the food served, it does give info on the entertainment provided. For example, the South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol surprised Biden state dinner guests with his rendition of “American Pie”.

As you enjoy a fulsome turkey stew at the Charlotte Senior Center, consider that turkeys weren’t domesticated in North America until the late 15th century. Before this, people dined on swans, storks, herons, cormorants and turtledoves.

Give a nod of gratitude that the turkey took over.

Oats has an interesting history. This principal grain in Scotland provoked Samuel Johnson to quip in his famous dictionary that oats is “a grain which in England is given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

He confessed he was deliberately trying to vex the Scots, but when living with a family in Aix-in-Provence, I noted the over-the-top enthusiasm for oatmeal expressed by the Scots co-boarder. When she and I decided to prepare culturally iconic dishes for the family, she enthusiastically promoted her oatmeal as the Scottish dish. I made pumpkin pie.

Married children dropped by the house, eager to taste these delights — and were bewildered by both.