National Nougat Day and National Spinach Day in USA

The word nougat comes from Occitan pan nogat and,seemingly from Latin panis nucatus 'nut bread' (the late colloquial Latin adjective nucatum means 'nutted' or 'nutty'). Two basic kinds of nougat exist. The first, and most common, is white nougat or Persian nougat, made with beaten egg whites and honey; it appeared in the early 7th century in Spain with Arabs. In Alicante, Spain there are several published recipes in the 16th century, for instance ”La Generosa Paliza” by Lope de Rueda and other novels written by Cervantes and in Montélimar, France, in the 18th century (Nougat of Montélimar). The second is brown nougat (nougat noir in French, literally 'black nougat'; croccante in Italian, meaning 'crunchy'), which is made without egg whites and has a firmer, often crunchy texture.

Made by the Romans, it would have been brought in Gaul to settle in Montélimar. Nux gatum would have become a nougo in Provençal. In fact, the first recipes for white nougat come from a 10th century Arab book from Baghdad. The nougat is then called nãtif.

Spinach is native to Persia and was introduced to China in the 7th It was brought to the United States around 1806. During medieval times, the green pigment extracted from spinach was used as ink for artwork. California is the top producer of the crop in the U.S.