International Hummus Day, an accident?

International Hummus Day is celebrated on May 13th.

MAY 13, 2019 15:02

Hummus 465 (photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pgoyette/235999644/) — Hummus 465

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pgoyette/235999644/)

All around the world people will be grabbing a bowl of hummus on Monday, in honor of International Hummus Day, one of the few days where eating hummus and instagramming is encouraged. Eating hummus is always encouraged.

"Hummus Day was started in 2012 out of pure love for hummus. The idea was to create a holiday around a food that could bring people together from around the world," creator Ben Lang's hummus day website states.

It all began 7 years ago, when Lang accidentally started the holiday at a hackathon in Tel Aviv, Lang told The Jerusalem Post. Since then, the holiday has taken off and spread across the globe, with events planned in the US, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia, with even an event in South Africa.

"It was basically a joke," Lang said. " [I] Didn't expect anything to happen." He bought the domain for HummusDay.com, picked a random day on the calendar and the day grew organically.

Lang's inspiration was World Nutella Day, celebrated February 5th. If there could be a Nutella day, why not a hummus day. While Lang has been very hands off, a lot of people have taken the day to heart.

"This year there are events in Dubai, doing crazy things," Lang told the Post.

Some companies like Deliveroo are celebrating by giving out free hummus when you order from Mezza Lebanese Kitchen in Dubai. Because the events evolve on their own this year there were not a lot of events in the Middle East.

However, Lang recalled that a few years ago there were events in Syria. Last year, TRT, a Turkish news channel, filmed the best hummus places from Jerusalem to Gaza, in honor of the day.

Lang was born in Israel and currently lives in New York, but hopes to come back to Israel one day.

Now, in his mid-twenties, Lang was still in high school when he and his friend Miriam Young founded International Hummus Day, according to Israel21c. This was not his only endeavor as a teen, at 15, he had a bustling eBay business, and was even interviewed by US channel 12 for his entrepreneurship.

Lang is also the co-founder of Mapme an application that helps build interactive maps.

He admitted that he does in fact enjoy hummus.