York Peppermint Pattie. Willis Lam / wikimedia / 2018 / CC BY-SA 2.0
The 11th of February is Peppermint Patty Day.
A peppermint patty is a mint patty coated in dark chocolate.
There are many, many different varieties of mint. Peppermint is just one of those varieties; its taste is popular in confections because its flavour is somewhat more pronounced than, say, spearmint.
Peppermint patties come in all sizes.
You can eat them on their own out of hand as a snack, or use them in dessert recipes such as cookies, cakes and brownies.
Here’s some ideas for enjoying peppermint patties today:
- chop and add into ice cream, milk shakes or ice cream floats;
- chop up and incorporate into a tray of muffins or a pan of brownies;
- have with a hot chocolate;
- pass out some at work as a treat;
- you could even try to make your own, but people who have tried advise it takes a few times to get them right.
Patricia “Peppermint Patty” Reichardt is a character found in the comic strip “Peanuts” by Charles M. Schulz.
#PeppermintPattyDay
See also: Mint, Peppermint, Spearmint
Also today
Today is also:
- the birthday of Lydia Maria Francis Child;
- the birthday of Paul Bocuse.
History
Throughout the first half or so of the 1900s, various organizations held their own local Peppermint Patty Days at various times of the year. Here’s one being held in November in the 1960s:
Girl’s Auxiliary Annual Patty Day. St John’s Daily News, Newfoundland. 29 November 1962. Page 9, col. 3.
In 2004, the Jacksonville Daily News printed a “special day box” saying that National Peppermint Patty Day was on February the eleventh. [1]Jacksonville Daily News. Thursday, February 5, 2004, Jacksonville, North Carolina, United States Of America. Page 10 A.
Jacksonville Daily News. Thursday, February 5, 2004, Jacksonville, North Carolina, U.S.A. Page 10 A
From that point on, appearances of the day being on the 11th of February start to occur regularly in newspapers.
York Peppermint Patties
The brand of peppermint patties known as “York” might be the best known brand in North America. It was first made in 1940 in York, South Carolina by Henry Kessler [2]York Peppermine Pattie. Accessed July 2019 at https://www.hersheys.com/york/en_us/about.html
Peppermint patties were actually made before York came along. In fact, they were being sold commercially since at least the 1900s. What made the York brand different was that the patties were crisp, whereas previous ones were soft and gooey. The York Company also used the spelling of “peppermint pattie” as opposed to “peppermint patty”
York Peppermint Patties Timeline
- In 1940, York Peppermint Patties first created. They were sold only on the east coast of the United States until the 1970s;
- In 1972, the company was bought by Peter Paul, who took them nationally in 1975;
- In 1978, Peter Paul was bought by Cadbury;
- In 1988, Hershey’s took over the patties when it acquired the US operations of Cadbury;
- In 2009, production of the patties was moved from Reading, Pennsylvania to Mexico.