July 23, 2022 - National Day Of The Cowboy | National Vanilla Ice Cream Day

Welcome to July 23rd, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate the spirit that won the old West and an ice cream that stands out from the crowd. Many of us have wondered what it would be like to completely reinvent ourselves. In the late 1800s, all it took was to move to the American West. Take for example John Henry Holliday. He came from a respectable family in Georgia and studied dentistry in Philadelphia. After a few years, he moved his practice to Dallas, Texas. But then John gave up dentistry and became a gambler…and a gunfighter. The legend we now know as Doc Holliday earned a reputation as a man not to be messed with, especially after joining up with the famous lawman Wyatt Earp. Cowboys became a symbol of the American West because of men like these. On National Day of the Cowboy we celebrate the spirit that helped build our Nation. The International Ice Cream Association has determined that 29 percent of us prefer vanilla over any other flavor. You may be surprised to learn that chocolate is preferred by only 9 percent. And there was a time when the two flavors were inseparable. In the Aztec culture vanilla was added to chocolate drinks for flavor. Chocolate and its counterpart were then imported to Europe, but it took until the 17th Century to separate them. An apothecary named Hugh Morgan created chocolate free treats for Queen Elizabeth I, and vanilla stood on its own at last becoming wildly popular in France. In the 1780s the American Minister in Paris took great interest in this exotic taste. This was of course Thomas Jefferson. On National Vanilla Ice Cream Day, celebrate the flavor that stands out from the crowd. I’m Anna Devere and I’m Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices