Via The Nashua Telegraph comes the exciting news that Feb. 1 is, in fact, National Baked Alaska Day.
Baked Alaska, unsurprisingly, does not have its roots in traditional Alaska cuisine. (Although it would be interesting to see someone pull off a version using akutaq in place of ice cream, possibly incorporating pilot bread for good measure.) According to Slashfood, the dessert's origins are "convoluted":
One French food writer claims chef Balzac was taught to bake ice cream in pastry by a visiting Chinese delegate at Paris' Grand Hotel; others say a chef at Delmonico's created it in honor of the U.S. purchasing Alaska from the Russians; yet another credits chef Jean Giroux of the Hotel de Paris in Monte-Carlo for the dessert.
The Telegraph expands on baked Alaska's origins and the events that led to the ice-cream-meringue-and-sponge-cake bombe earning its northern name:
Prior to (Delmonico's chef Charles) Ranhofer, the dessert had been known as omelet surprise or omelette á la norvégienne (Norwegian omelet) due to the dessert's shape and its surprisingly cold ice cream filling. To commemorate the United States' purchase of Alaska from Russia, Ranhofer modified the dessert and dubbed it Alaska, Florida. Over the next few decades, the name was further altered to Baked Alaska, by which it is most popularly known to this day.
Whatever the origins, it's delicious. We'll take it. And if sweets aren't your thing, don't worry; according to this list, National Crabmeat Day is coming up on March 9.
Contact Maia Nolan at maia(at)alaskadispatch.com.