FEBRUARY 1, 2014 – NATIONAL FREEDOM DAY – NATIONAL BAKED ALASKA DAY – NATIONAL SERPENT DAY

National Freedom Day is annually observed in the United States, on February 1st.  

This day honors the signing by Abraham Lincoln of a joint House and Senate resolution that later became the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

On February 1, 1865, President Lincoln signed the Amendment outlawing slavery. (although it was not ratified by the states until later in
December of 1865)

 Former slave and Philadelphia resident, Major Richard Robert Wright Sr., had a vision of a day when freedom for all Americans is celebrated.  He invited leaders, both local and national, to meet together and organize a movement for a national holiday to commemorate Lincoln’s signing on February 1, 1865.
Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hosted the first commemoration of National Freedom Day on February 1, 1942.  On that first year, the commemoration included laying a wreath at the Liberty Bell.  This tradition has been carried on each year since.
On National Freedom Day, many people across the nation reflect on the freedoms that the United States honors and to appreciate the goodwill of the United States.

LET FREEDOM RING

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           NATIONAL BAKED ALASKA DAY

Today dessert lovers have another special holiday to celebrate as it is National Baked Alaska Day.

National Baked Alaska Day is celebrated across the nation each year on February 1st.  Baked Alaska is a dessert food consisting of ice cream and cake topped with browned meringue.  The ice cream is often placed in a pied dish which has been lined with slices of sponge cake or Christmas pudding and then topped with meringue.  The entire dish is then placed in a very hot oven just long enough to firm the meringue.  The meringue is an insulator and the short cooking time prevents the heat from getting through to the ice cream.

Baked Alaska is also known as glace au four, omelette a la norvegienne, Norwegian omelette and omelette surprise.

In 1876, Delmonico’s Restaurant chef-de-cuisine Charles Ranhofer coined the name “Baked Alaska” to honor the recently acquired American territory.  The name “Baked Alaska” came from the low temperatures of Alaska and Norway.

* Variation - Bombe Alaska – Dark rum is splashed over the Baked Alaska. Lights are then turned down and the whole dessert is flambeed while being served.

*  Simplification – 1974 – Jacqueline Halliday Diaz simplified the process with her invention of the baking pan called the Culinique that forms a fillable hollow in the cake that may then be filled with ice cream.

                                      NATIONAL BAKED ALASKA DAY HISTORY

Within our research, we were unable to find the creator of National Baked Alaska Day, an “unofficial” national holiday.

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              NATIONAL SERPENT DAY

National Serpent Day is celebrated by people across the country each year on February 1st.  This day was created as a day to

The word “Serpent” is derived from the Latin word “serpens“, meaning a crawling animal or snake.

Snakes, which are elongated, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes, can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears.

There are more than 20 families of serpents/snakes that are currently recognized, comprising about 500 genera and about 3,400 species.  They can range in size any where from 10 cm to up to around 29 ft in length.

National Serpent Day celebrates our slithering friends.

National Serpent Day History
Our research was unable to find the creator and origin of National Serpent Day, an “unofficial” national holiday.