January 23, 2022 - National Pie Day | National Handwriting Day

Welcome to January 23rd, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate winding words and the taste of home. After the fall of the Roman Empire, civilizations across Europe took many different paths. So did writing. All books were handwritten in Latin, but depending on the region, the script could look much different. Scribes each put their own spin on letters and sometimes a letter like S would be big and loopy, and another it could be tiny. As a result, writing in one area of Europe looked wildly different from writing in another. When the Holy Roman Empire came to power, Charlemagne made it a point to standardize writing across Europe. He commissioned an English scholar to create a standardized font known as Carolingian miniscule. This form of writing was the first to make use of upper and lower case letters, as well as rules for spacing and punctuation. On National Handwriting Day, we celebrate twists and turns of scripts around the globe. If you’re from England this means the savory kind with some kind of stewed meat and spices, but in America pie is dessert. And it’s not just one of those “driving on the wrong side of the street” differences. When Mark Twain wrote A Tramp Abroad after traveling through Europe, he made a list of all the foods he would eat upon returning to his home in America: apple pie, peach pie, pumpkin pie, and squash pie. And to drive the point home, his recipe for English pie went as follows: “Construct a bullet proof dough, fill with stewed dried apples aggravated with cloves, then solder on the lid and set in a safe place till it petrifies. Serve cold at breakfast and invite your enemy.” Things have certainly improved since 1880, but one thing is sure, on National Pie Day folks still celebrate with their own flavor of home. 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