February 2, 2021 – National Tater Tot Day | National Groundhog Day

How Do You Like To Serve Up Tots?

Welcome to February 2nd, 2021 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate tasty tots and a prophetic rodent.

The story of the golden, crispy nuggets of potatoes made from the cast off bits of French fries begins with two brothers in 1934.  Nephi and Golden Grigg were farmers barely scraping by during the Great Depression. They made a bold decision to mortgage their home to purchase the frozen foods plant they had rented along the Oregon Idaho border.  The Food Company now known as Ore-Ida began producing frozen corn, but Nephi knew the big money was in French fries. The problem was that the equipment used to cut the fries left an abundance of irregular potato bits, which were at first used to feed cattle.   Nephi didn’t like throwing away profits and soon devised a way to pack the peelings into tater tots.  By 1964 Ore-Ida turned an annual profit of $31 million.  On National Tater Tot Day take a tasty bite of the American dream.

The most famous resident of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, is a groundhog named Phil. For over 130 years, he’s made a public appearance on February 2nd to give us a weather forecast. When Phil speaks we all listen. But only the current president of the Groundhog Club can actually understand Phil’s secret language. Groundhogese. And Phil’s predictions are always 100 percent accurate. If his divination skills seem off, it’s because the president translated incorrectly. After the forecast is shared with the world, Phil goes home to his wife Phyllis at the Punxsutawney Town Library, where he waits for next year’s festivities. That’s a pretty good gig if you ask me! On National Groundhog Day celebrate this prophetical rodent and his winter forecast or cuddle up and watch the classic Bill Murray film. 

I’m Anna Devere and I’m Marlo Anderson.  Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day.


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