So how did you celebrate World Nutella Day? What do you mean, you missed it? How could you miss something as important as that? It was just before National Pizza Day and just a week after International Chocolate Cake Day. Me? I wrote a love song about Nutella to the tune of Bring Him Home from Les Misérables, and then played it on a Bontempi organ in the light spreads aisle of my local Tesco, while weeping tears of pure glucose syrup.

Don’t be silly. Of course I didn’t. I actually stood in the aisle smashing jars of the stuff on the floor then ran away muttering, “Oops! Butter fingers!” OK, I didn’t do that either but I wanted to, really I did. A day. For bloody Nutella, the stuff that’s only useful for recreating models of Devils Tower from Close Encounters of the Third Kind? The chocolate and hazelnut spread that’s only 7.4% chocolate, and an awful lot more despair? There are many things I could do to Nutella. None of them involve throwing it a party.

Then again, maybe it’s only fair it has a day, because everything else does. National Poultry Day is on 19 March, 25 March is International Waffle Day and 21 April is Tea Day. There’s a day for sushi, carrots, cocktails, hummus, cherries, burgers and porridge. Cupcakes get a whole bloody week, alongside lamb, rice and roast dinners. They’re all planned for September, if you’re interested, which you shouldn’t be because you’re better than that.

Just when did food get so needy? I was going to argue that if we’re going to have a day for something as banal as carrots, then we should have one for something important which needs a bit of attention, like tripe. But there already is one (24 October). And to be honest even World Tripe Day makes me a bit itchy; it’s a noble flappy, hexagonal, slippery stomach lining which does not deserve to have its reputation violated by modern marketing techniques.

Because that’s what really drives me nuts (National Nut Day: 22 October). There’s a dismal mediocrity to the knuckle-dragging, flat-footed thinking behind the creation of celebration food days that pushes me to the edge of despair: it suggests that, by pin-pointing a moment in the calendar for a specific food, there’s a chance to manufacture genuine awareness-raising free-floating coverage for something that nobody in their right mind actually gives a toss about. Which means that the only people who can possibly benefit are the hapless PRs being paid to feign the slightest bit of interest in milk (1 June), cucumbers (13 June), or hotdogs (23 July). Or to put it another way, if you are one of those people who finds their hearts lifted by the very thought of a day for chocolate soufflés (28 February), French bread (21 March) or paella (27 March) then you need to sit down and have a long hard think about who you’ve become.

Then again, maybe running against fashion is silly. I’m cool with these modern media ways. Perhaps it’s time I joined in. And so, I have decided that henceforth, 28 March, being the 19th anniversary of my first review as the Observer’s restaurant critic, shall be designated National Jay Rayner Day. I insist everyone puts on a ludicrous, uncombed black wig, goatee and moustache so they look like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen after a breakdown. They must then wander about pointing at plates of food while barking, “That’s just so jejune!” while scarfing bags of pork scratchings. Look, if it’s good enough for Nutella, it’s plenty good enough for me.