While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh, my! - April 18 is National Animal Crackers Day!

Nothing tugs on your nostalgia like the innocent sweetness of animal crackers. Perhaps they were your favorite snack at lunchtime in elementary school, or they still offer comfort to you at the end of a bad day. No matter how you snack, you're never too old to grab a colorful box that still makes you think of recess.

During the late 1800s, America coveted something that England was rich with, so much that we had to import it for ourselves: animal-shaped biscuits. The demand escalated, and homegrown bakers began to make and sell their own. Stauffer's Biscuit Company was the first around the turn of the century in Pennsylvania.

In 1902, the National Biscuit Company, known as Nabisco today, began to market "Barnum's Animals," tugging even more on people's fascination with the circus by selling little colorful boxes including depictions of circus animals on the side and a string to hang them on the Christmas tree as a gift.

These animal crackers still delight folks today, and you'll never get the same variety in a single box. And in case you were wanting a different way to enjoy your animal crackers, dip into a sweet cookie dough cheese ball, filled with brown sugar, chocolate chips and cream cheese. Yes, that's right, we're combining cheese ball day with animal crackers. We understand if your mind is blown.