0106 - Holiday Calendar Page - National Bean Day

Because National Bean Day on January 6 falls in the middle of winter, it’s the perfect excuse to cook a favorite comfort food. Wondering why National Bean Day is held on January 6? That’s the same day as the famous geneticist, Gregor Mendel, died in 1884. Mendel used bean plants and pea plants to develop theories on genetics in plants. So the formation of National Bean Day has more to do with scientific development than how good bean recipes taste. But don’t let that deter you from enjoying eating beans on this holiday!

History of Bean Day

The day commemorates the death of the geneticist Gregor Mendel, whose experiments with breeding pea plants formed the basis of modern genetics. From what we could find, it would appear that Paula Bowen is the creator of Bean Day.

Her main reasons were that there aren’t many holidays to celebrate around the time that Bean Day has typically been celebrated. Plus she thought that the world needed a day to honor Mr. Bean. Her father was a pinto bean farmer, so she’s pretty familiar with beans in general and no doubt was raised on them. Beans are also healthy and common in many cuisines throughout the world, so we’re not at all surprised that there’s a day dedicated to their celebration.

Electronic greeting card websites seem to have a lot of references to Bean Day, but we’re not sure if it actually means that e-card companies actually invented Bean Day or if they’ve just been the most effective at capitalizing on it. Small matter though – if you hate beans and don’t want to have anything to do with them on Bean Day, you can still send greeting cards to your friends to mark the occasion. Some people think that it’s actually called ‘National Bean Day’, but there’s no congressional record nor any presidential proclamation for such a day. So it’s safe to assume that it’s not an officially recognized occasion.