"Halloween...is thought to have derived from a pre-Christian festival known as
Samhain...celebrated among the Celtic peoples...Samhain was the principal feast day of a year that
began on 1 November. Traditionally, bonfires were lit as part of the celebration. It was believed
that the spirits of those who had died during the previous twelve months were granted access into
the otherworld during Samhain...Scholars know little about the actual practicies and beliefs
associated with Samhain. Most account were not written down until centuries after the conversion
of Ireland to Christianity...and then by Christian monks recording ancient sagas. From the
evidence, we know that Samhain was a focal point of the yearly cycle, and that traditions of
leaving out offerings of food and drink to comfort the wandering spirits had joined the bonfire
custom. Also, the tradition of mumming--dressing in disguise and performing from home to home
in exchange for food or drink, as well as pranking, perhaps a customary activity of the wandering
spirits, or simply as a customary activity found throughout Europe--had become part of the
occasion...Halloween was brought to North America with Irish and British colonists, although it
was not widely observed until the large influx of European immigrants in the nineteenth
century."
---Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Solomon H. Katz editor and chief [Thomson
Gale:New York] 2003, Volume 2 (p. 167-9)
[NOTE: this book contains far more information than can be paraphrased here. Your local public
librarian will be happy to help you find a copy.]
Traditional Halloween foods & customs: Ireland
Traditional Halloween foods: United States
Recommended reading for history of boxty, colcannon, cabbage, etc.:
Pumpkins & turnips: Jack-O'-Lanterns
"The vegetable most associated with Halloween...the jack-o'-lantern, which also had its roots in
British folklore. Jack was a perennial trickster of folktales, who offended not only God but also
the devil with his many pranks and transgressions. Upon his death, he was denied entrance into
both heaven and hell, though the devil grudgingly tossed him a fiery coal, which Jack caught in a
hollowed turnip and which would light his night-walk on hearth until Judgement Day...The
Oxford English Dictionary gives a date of 1663 for its first printed record of the phrase
"jack-with-the-lantern," and 1704 , "Jack of lanthorns," both referring to a night watchman...the
jack-o-lantern is definately associated by 1817 with spooky pranks--but not explicity with
Halloween or hollowed turnips. Although ever modern chronicle of the holiday repeats the claim
that vegetable lanterns were a time-honored component of Halloween celebrations in the British
Isles, none gives any primary documentation. In fact, none of the major nineteenth-century
chroniclers of British holidays and folk customs makes any mention whatsoever of carved lanterns
in connection with Halloween....The Oxford English Dictionary provides no clue as to
when the Halloween association began; it credits the United States as the primary source of the
modern definition of the jack-o'lantern, followed by England and Ireland, but without dates or
citations."
Apples
"The Romans brought their own pagan mythology and celbration to Britain, including the
November 1 harvest festival of Pomona, goddess of the orchards, and the masked revels of
Saturnalia, the winter solstice. Pomona's association with the apple no doubt fostered the fruit's
later prominence in Halloween games and festivities."
Nuts
Kale
Trick-or-treat
"Trick or treating grew popular between 1920 and 1950, probably finding its first practices in the
wealthier areas of the East and slowly spreading to remote areas of the West and South. Reports
of trick-or-treaters exist in Wellesley, Massachusetts, as early as the late 1920s, but not until the
40s in North Carolina, Florida and Texas. By the 1950s, every child in America had heard about
the custom...The origins of Halloween trick or treating are very old indeed. A early American
antecedent was Guy Fawkes Day. The celebration, popular in parts of the east during the 17th and
18th centuries, died out in most communities around the American Revolution. Thanksgiving,
however, was being celebrating with some regularity at that time, and it became a Thanksgiving
custom for children to dress up and beg from house to house on the last Thursday in November.
At first the poorer children would dress in cast-off ragged clothes and beg "something for
Thanksgiving" from their wealthier neighbors. Soon all kinds of children got involved, and the
custom grew more popular and costumes more elaborate. The Thanksgiving masquerade existed
as late as the 1930s, then suddenly vanished, and Halloween costumes and parades began to gain
national popularity...As for begging, the notion of receiving gifts of candy on Halloween owed
something to the public parties of the previous decades."
"Sometime in the middle of the 1930s, enterprising householders, fed up with soaped windows
and worse, began experimenting with a home-based variation on the old protection racket
practiced between shopkeepers and Thanksgiving ragamuffins. Doris Hudson Moss, writing for
American Home in 1939, told of her success, begun several years earlier, of hosting a
Halloween open house for neighborhood children...The American Home article is
significant because it is apparently the first time the expression "trick or treat" is used in a
mass-circulation periodical in the United States...It is probably that trick-or-treating had its
immediate
origins in thy myriad of organized celebrations mounted by schools and civic groups across the
country specifically to curb vandalism...It is the postwar years that are generally regarded as the
glorious heyday of trick-or-treating. Like the consumer economy, Halloween itself grew by leaps
and bounds. Major candy companies like Curtiss and Brach, no longer constrained by sugar
rationing, launched national advertising campaigns specifically aimed at Halloween. If
trick-or-treating had previously been a localized, hit-or-miss phenomenon, it was now a national
duty."
Halloween candies of the 1920s
"There was a profusion, even a confusion, of candies in orange and black. There were orange gumdrops, orange jelly beans, orange
buttercups, and chips and hard candies. And there were black (licorice) gumdrops and jelly beans and buttons and all possible
devices that were ever seen in black candies...There were lovely and dainty opera sticks in both orange and black, tied often
with ribbon and for the center of some of the endless arrangement of these things in Halloween candy boxes--witch and black cat
decorations on them--and ultimately tied with wonderful popmpons of black...ribbon."
& the 1950s
Where does candy corn fit in?
"1898. Goelitz Confectionery Company begins making candy corn or "chicken feed." They continue to make this Halloween favorite longer than any other
company."
Certainly there is a connection between corn and fall and harvest time. Some people decorated their houses with cornstalks around Halloween time.
Our survey of historic American newspapers confirms candy corn was special to many folks, but not necessarily connected with Halloween. We found ads
published throughout the year. For example:
"Pre Holiday Sale...Goelitz Candy Corn, pound cello bag, 25 cents. Butter cream candy in three colors and shaped like a real corn kernel. Worth crowing
about."
"When a person starts talking about the good old days, it is said to be sure sign of age creeping up. Maybe I am already reverting to my second childhood because
the other day I had a sudden longing for chicken-feed corn and jelly beans and when I looked into my corner store none was to be found..."
Candy corn, like many other candies we enjoy at Halloween, was promoted as treats for Halloween by candy companies after WWII. Candy corn might have been especially popular because it was also a seasonal (fall) confection. Popcorn balls and candied apples are other seasonal (fall) treats conventinetly transitioned to Halloween.
About candy corn.
Historic American Halloween party menus
[1901]
Refreshments Bouillon, de Jolly Boys, Celery, Kindergarten Crackers, Turtle
Sandwiches, Little Pigs in Blankets, Orange Jelly, Olives a la Natural History, Sugar Off, with
maple syrup, Nut Cartoons, lemonade."
[1905]
"Hallowe'en Party
Hallowe'en Suggestions
[1911]
[1914]
[1932]
A Hallowe'en Midnight Supper: Hot Ham Shortcakes with Cheese Sauce, Dill Pickle
Sticks, Celery Curls, Radishes, Pumpkin-face Tarts, Ice-cold Coca-Cola, Chicken Corn (candy),
Nuts, Apples on a Stick
[1937]
Goblin-faced Meat Pies (faced slashed in crust)
[1942]
[1956]
[1963]
About culinary research & about copyright.
"Samhain. This ancient festival, the first day of winter, is traditionally kept on 1 November, which
in the Christian calendar is the Feast of All Saints. The vigil of the feast is Halloween, the night
when charms and incantations were powerful, when people looked into the future, and when
feasting and merriment were ordained. Up to recent time this was a day of abstinence, when
according to church ruling no flesh meat was allowed. Colcannon, apple cake and barm brack, as
well as apples and nuts were part of the festive fare. Colcannon was cooked in a skillet pot which
had a large round bottom, three little legs and two ear-like handles at the sides, and consisted of
potatoes mashed and mixed with chopped kale or green cabbage and onions...Another favourite
was champ, an Armagh name for a dish of mashed potatoes, sweet milk, and chopped chives or
onions, eaten like colcannon by dipping each spoonful into the well of butter. It was also the
custom that when the first of the new potatoes were dug they were made into champ. Boxty
pancakes were another Halloween favourite. Grated raw potatoes were squeezed in a cloth,
sieved, and mixed with baking powder and salt and a well-beaten egg. Sufficient sweet milk was
added to make a pancake batter. These were served hot and well buttered and sprinkled with
caster sugar. They could als be made into scones called farls and baked on a griddle...Apple
potato cake or fadge was a popular dish in the north-east of the country, made with a potato cake
mixture of freshly boiled potatoes, a little salt, melted butter and flour to bind. The mixture was
divided into two, and rolled into rounds. Layers of sliced apples were laid on the base of the
fadge; then the lid of pastry was paced on top. It was put down to cook in a pot-oven on a bed of
red-hot turf. When the fadge was almost ready it was sliced round the sides, the top turned back
and the apples liberally sprinkled with brown sugar and a good knob of butter. The fadge was
then returnd to the oven until the sugar and butter melted to form a sauce. A ring was inserted in
the cake and it was believed that whoever got the rind would be married before the year was out.
It was traditional that cattle could be taken in or housed in the byres and that all potatoes should
be dug and all oats stacked by Halloween. Blackberries should not be picked or apples taken from
the tree because it was said that puca spat on them on the night after Samhain. In the Glens of
Antrim they said the devil shook his club at these fruits and shook his blanket at them. In north
Leinster and parts of Ulster the old tradition of leaving food out for the fairies on Halloween was
still observed in living memory. A plate of champ, complete with spoon, was set at the foot of the
nearest fairy thorn (hawthorn or whitethorn) or at the gate entrance to a field on both Halloween
and All Souls' Night, 2 November. This was considered by some a ritual for the dead, by others
an offering to the fairies. The association between food and the fairies is marked and this is
especillay true of the festivals, most of which had their origin in pre-Christian times. An informant
in Layde, Co Antrim, describes how here grandmother used to make thick oaten cakes with a hold
in the centre on Halloween. A string was threaded through the hole and any child who came in
had an oaten cake tied around her neck...This ancient festival is still celebrated not only at home
but in parts of Britain and all over the New England states of America. In town and country
children still carry on the age-old custom of disguising themselves in masks and costumes and
going from house to house collecting apples and nuts for the halloween party...After the
traditional supper of colcannon young people played games involving ducking for apples in a
barrel or basin of water, or allowing the peel of an apple to fall on the ground in the belief that it
would shosw the initial letter of a sweetheart's name. A favourite pastime was for courting
couples to sit around the fire telling stories and roasting nuts...Almost all games and practices on
this night had to do with love and courtship: the ring hidden in the colcannon or barm brack
denoting marriage, or more disappointingly, the thimble foretelling spinsterhood. In many parts of
the country the first and last spoonfuls of colcannon were put into the girl's stocking, which was
then hung from a nail in the door in the belief that her future husband would be the first to enter.
Still another custom was for a girl to go blindfolded into the night to pull a head of cabbage. The
size and shape of the root denoted the size and shape of her future spouse...Another custom was
to cut nine stalks of yarrow with a black handled knife. Part of the spell decreed that the girl must
not speak from the moment she began to eat her colcannon until all the family had gone to
bed...Still another charm was for a girl to eat an apple before a mirror at midnight while combing
her hair. Her future husband would look over her right shoulder as the clock struck twelve. The
Halloween supper at home was always the most enjoyable feast of the year. On 31 October 1831,
Amhlaoibh O Suilleabhain noted in his diary: A fine dry, cloudy day. I spent the night pleasantly
eating apples, burning nuts, drinking tea and eating apple pie."
---Land of Milk and Honey: The Story of Traditional Irish Food and Drink, Brid Mahon
[Merdier Press:Boulder CO] 1998 (p. 138-141)
"Halloween may be the only American holiday that is not associated with a particular feast of
recipe. Nineteenth-century Irish immigrants brough the October 31 celebration to the United
States. On that night it was traditional to give soul cakes to visitors to their households in return
for promises to say prayers on behalf of dead relatives. They also put lanterns made from
vegetables in the windows to welcome ghosts and wantering souls...Carved pumpkin
jack-o'lanterns are an integral part of Halloween festivities, but they are seldom eaten...Smaller
species
of cheese pumpkin, pie pumpkin, or sweet pumpkin, which have sweeter, less watery flesh, are
used for making pies...Some people save the seeds to dry, roast, and salt as a snack...American
harvest festivals called play parties were a precursor to the modern Halloween. In the
mid-nineteenth century, Snap Apple Night or Nut Crack Night parties were celebrated in some
regions
of the United States with games, such as dunking for apples...In the late nineteenth cnetury,
middle-class Americans looking toward their Celtic heritage rediscovered (and reinvented)
Halloween customs and made them respectable. Beginning in the 1870s, articles on Halloween
appeared in periodicals that encouraged a new, more uniformly celebrated Victorian fete. By the
twentieth century, Halloween parties for both children and adults had become a common way to
mark the day...Candies made in the shape of corn kernels and pumpkins commemorated the
harvest season. The Wunderle Candy Company of Philadelphia was the first to commerically
produce candy corn in the 1880s."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
Univeristy Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 585-6)
Oxford Companion to Food/Alan Davidson (1999)
"There are a host of stories to explain the origin of the Halloween Jack-o-lantern. The Irish claim
it first, and tell the tale of Jack, a man so miserly that he once tricked the Devil into turning
himself into a sixpence, then snapped the money into his pocket and made the Devil promise not
to come for him for a whole year. Jack lived another stingy and spiteful year, and when the Devil
came back for him, Jack tricked him into climbing up a tree to pick a big, beautiful apple from a
high branch. Jack quickly carved the sign of the cross in the trunk of the tree so the Devil couldn't
climb down, and made him promise not to come for Jack for 10 years. When Jack died soon after,
he went up to Heaven, but Saint Peter denied him entrance because of his stingy nature. Jack tried
Hell, but was surprised to find that the Devil wouldn't let him in. The Devil had to keep his
promise, and besides, he wasn't very fond of Jack anyway. For punishment, the nasty old man was
sentenced to walk the earth forever with only a lantern made from a carved turnip and one coal
for Hell to guide him. When the Irish immigrants arrived in America, they delighted in the size and
carving potential of the native pumpkin. The fat orange harvest vegetable was quickly substituted
for the turnip, and the carved-out snaggle-toothed Halloween jack-o'lantern was born."
---Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History, Lesley Pratt Bannantyne
[Pelican Publishing:Gretna LA] 1998 (p. 78)
---Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween, David J. Skal
[Bloomsbury:New York] 2002 (p. 31-2)
"In old England, apples and nuts were seen as powerful prognosticators. Celtic folk used them in
their Halloween divination games for centuries, and there were some Scottish, Irish and British
men and women--people from the northern parts of England--still celebrating All Hallows with
apples and nuts throughout the heyday of Guy Fawkes...The night of October 31 was known in
parts of the British Isles ad "Snap Apple Night"...the name came from an old game played by
tying the player's hands behind his back and having him try to bite an apple suspended from a
string...Like their English ancestors before them, Americans used apple dunking to find who
will marry first. Whoever could snag an apple from a big bucket filled with water, hands tied
behind the back, would be wed soonest."
---Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History, Lesley Pratt Bannantyne
[Pelican Publishing:Gretna LA] 1998 (p. 56)
---Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween, David J. Skal
[Bloomsbury:New York] 2002 (p. 21-2)
"Nuts have been used for magic since Roman times. Some Scottish and northern English people
believed nuts were such powerful sorcerers that they called their October 31st celebration "Nut
Crack Night"...Chestnuts and walnuts, both plentiful at harvesttime, were popular in early
divination games. The most well-known game goet as follows: two nuts are named, each for a
potential lover, and put on a grate in the fire. She who wants to know the future watches and
waits. If a nut burns true and steady, it indicates the lover will have a faithful nature; if it pops in
the heat, it indicates the man is not to be trusted."
---Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History, Lesley Pratt Bannantyne
[Pelican Publishing:Gretna LA] 1998 (p. 56-7)
"In Scotland, young people went blindfolded into the garden to pull kale stalks; later, before the
crackling fireplace, the plants would be "read" for revealing signs of the future wife or
husband--short and stunted, tall and healthy, withered and old, and so on. The amount of earth
clinging to
the root was believed to indicate the amount of dowry or fortune the player could expect from a
mate. The stlaks were then hung above the door in a row, and each subsequent Halloween visitor
was assigned the identity of a vegetable-spouse in turn. Cabbages and leeks were similarly
used."
---Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween, David J. Skal
[Bloomsbury:New York] 2002 (p. 29)
"The custom of begging for food from house to house on Halloween came for the old Catholic
soul-sale custom. Once charitable in nature, "souling" took a popular turn as it evolved over the
years. Irish Halloween begging always involved a masquerade...
but who did the begging and what they were after varied from region to region. In Ireland's
County Cork, a mummers' procession marked All Hallows...Prosperity was promised to those
who gave food, drink or money to the revelers...This custom of taking a masquerade from house
to house and asking for food or money was one practiced in America on Guy Fawkes Day, and
for some years even on Thanksgiving. The Irish Hallloween masquerade proved so popular it
eventually evolved into 20th-century American trick-or-treating."
---Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History, Lesley Pratt Bannantyne
[Pelican Publishing:Gretna LA] 1998 (p. 67, 71)
---Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History, Lesley Pratt Bannantyne
[Pelican Publishing:Gretna LA] 1998 (p. 142-3)
---Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween, David J. Skal
[Bloomsbury:New York] 2002 (p. 52-5)
---"Halloween Fal-Lalls and Fare," Jane Eddingon, Chicago Daily Tribune, October 23, 1921 (p. E6)
An an placed in the Washington Post October 28, 1951 (p. M7) lists these items under the heading "Trick or Treat Candies":
Goeltiz Candy Corn, Brachs Harvest Jelly Beans, Brach's Harvest Panned Mix, Hershey's Kisses, Hershey's Miniatures,
Butter Cream Pumpkins (pound bulk), Fleers Double Bubble Gum, Pure Sugar Apples, Jordan Almonds, Goetzes Caramel Creams,
Reed's Buterscotch Squares, Midgee Tootsie Rolls, Starlight Kisses, Roasted Peanuts in Shell, Tootsie Roll Handi Pak,
Chocolate Bridge Mixture, Spiced Jelly Drops, Chocolate Nonpareils, and Fireside Marshmallows.
The earliest references we find to candy corn (aka chicken feed) credit Goelitz (now the Jelly Belly company) for introducing this confection the American
public. No particular connection with Halloween or fall season:
---Candy: The Sweet History, Beth Kimmerle [Collectors Press:Portland OR] 2003 (p. 32)
---advertisement, Washington Post, July 1, 1951 (p. M7)
[NOTE: This holiday promotion targets Independence Day!]
---"Childhood Memories of Good Old Home-Made Fudge, Penny Candies," Langston Hughes, The Chicago Defender, December 18, 1948 (p. 6)
If you would like recipes for any of items listed below, let us know. Happy to
supply!
"Halloween Party
While the dictionary definition of Halloween is rather different than the modern small boy's
interpretation of it would indicate, yet we say with all earnestness, give the boys a good time
occasionally, and why not on Halloween?...Boys will be far less apt to carry off the clothes-posts,
unhinge the gates, and make night hideous, if you give them a part in keeping with the occasion--a
party where tin horns form the first course at the dinner-table--where colored paper, napkins,
folded to represent the "jack-be-nimble" and "jack-be-quicks," "toads," "monkeys," and
"parrots"; where paper caps adorn the head and where jack-lanterns adorn the room...
---The Blue Ribbon Cook Book, Annie R. Gregory [Monarch Book Company:Chicago
IL] 1901 (p. 31)
"Hallowe'en Box Cake
The newest fashion in Hallowe'en supper-table decoration is a cake made of white pasteboard
boxes, in shape like pieces of pie, which fit together and give the appearance of a large cake. Each
one of the boxes is covered with a white paper which resembles frosting. At the close of the feast
the pieces are distributed, each box containing some little souvenier sutiable to Hallowe'en. One
box, of course, contains a ring, another a thimble, a third a piece of silver, a fourth a mitten, a fifth
a fool's cap, and so on. Much fun is created as the boxes are opened, and the person who secures
the ring is heartily congratulated. The unlucky individual who gets the fool's cap must wear it for
the evening." (P. 86)
All formality must be dispensed with on Hallowe'en. Not only will quaint customs and mythic
tricks be in order, but the decorations and refreshments, and even the place of meeting, must be as
strange and mystifying as possible. For the country or suburban home a roomy barn is decidedly
the best accomodation that can be provided. If this is not practicable, a large attic, running the
entire length of the house, is the next choice; but if this also is denied the ambitious hostess, let
the kitchen be the place of meeting and of mystery, with the dining-room, cleared of its usual
furniture and decorated suitably for the occasion, reserved for the refreshments. The light should
be supplied only by Jack-o'-lanterns hung here and there about the kitchen, with candles in the
dining-room.The decorations need not be expensive to be charming, no matter how large the
room. Large vases of ferns and chrysanthemums and umbrella stands of fluffy grasses will be
desirable; but if these cannot be readily obtained, quantities of gayly tinted autumn leaves will be
quite as appropriate. Festoons of nuts, bunches of wheat or oats, and strings of cranberries may
also help to brighten the wall decorations, and the nuts and cranberries will be useful in many odd
arrangements for ornamenting the refreshment table. Have the table long enough (even if it must
be extended with boards the whole length of the barn or attic) to accommodated all the guests at
once. Arrange huge platters of gingerbread at each corner, with dishes of plain candies and nuts
here and there, and pyramids of fruit that will be quickly demolished when the guests are grouped
about the table. No formal waiting will be desirable. (p. 88-9)
"Browning nuts, popping corn, roasting apples, and toasting marshmallows will add a great deal
to the pleasure of the evening. The dining table should be draped in pale green crepe paper, the
lights above being shrouded in gorgeous orange. Pumpkins of various sizes should be scooped
and scraped to a hollow shell and, lined with wax paper and filled with good things to eat, should
be placed in the centre of the table. Lighted candles and quaint oriental lanterns will add greatly to
the decorations." (P. 90)
---Bright Ideas for Entertaining, Mrs. Herbert Linscott [George W. Jacobs:Philadelphia]
9th edition, 1905
"Hallowe'en Spreads
Menu No. I: Ganser Salad, Brown Bread Sandwiches, Raised Loaf Cake, Pricilla Popped
Corn, Hot Coffee.
Menu No. II: Rob's Rarebit, Zephyrettes, Sultana Fidge, German Punch
Menu No. III: Hamlin Ham Timbales, Ribbon Sandwiches, Nut Ginger Cookies,
Peneuche, Cider"
---Catering for Special Occasions with Menus & Recipes, Fannie Merritt Farmer [David
McKay:Philadelphia] 1911 (p. 129-141)
"Never were Halloween Decorations so Gay as This Year--Some Delicious Candy Recipes for the Festival
Each year there are so many new decorations for Halloween and so many good old ones revived that the only shame is that
Halloween doesn't last for a week. And surely never before were there such attractive Halloween decorations as there are
this year...For a centrepiece on the table on which the refreshments are placed at a children's Halloween party are set
forth, nothing is more interesting than a huge paper pumpkin, with green leaves and a greed stem. After the pumpkin and
leaves are made, they can be varnished to make them stiff. A little doll, dressed in yellow crepe paper, is seated on the top
of the pumpkin and it is drawn by half a dozen little gray mice, that can be bought at any toy or favor store. Each piece has
a piece of yellow ribbon tied about its neck, with the other end in the hand of the doll Cinderella...Another Halloween
idea that is good is a big Japanese paper parasol covered with yellow crepe paper, with two eyes, a nose and a mouth cut out of
black paper, and touched up with white paint. These are fastened on the outside of the parasol, the nose over the tip, and
the effect is delightful. Small gummed seals that can be used for decorative purposes come cut out and sold in packages. There
are owls and witches, pumpkins, imps, and cats. An effective but easily made place card is a small white card with a seal
pasted in one corner or at one end."
---"What Every Woman Wants to Know," The New York Times, October 25, 1914 (p. X5)
"A Halloween Ghost Party
Everyone loves a ghost party, whether he is fourteen or ninety. The invitations may be decorated
with skull and crossbones and instruct the guests to come in ghostly garb. Have the room
darkened, and as they enter the guests should be greeted with a ghostly handclasp; a wet glove
filled with sand gives the desired effect. On the hearth bubbles a witch's cauldron (made from a
cooking pot), stirred by a crone who sings the incantation from Macbeth as she tosses in
toy snakes, frogs, and so forth. She also draws out fortunes for the curious. The bugget supper
table for a ghost party may be covered with a black paper cloth on which white ghosts are pasted.
The center peice might be a witch's cauldron (a black pot with a grinning face chalked on one
side), filled with tiny dangling ghosts made from pipe cleaners, which act as favors. White tapers
stuck in black bottles furnish the only light.
---When You Entertain: What To Do, And How, Ida Bailey Allen [Coca-Cola
Company:Atlanta GA] 1932 (p. 94-5)
"Hallowe'en Suppers
Hallowee'en Salad
Cream Cheese Sanwiches
Nuts, Apples, Taffy
Orange-filled Cup Cakes, Sweet Cider
Julienne Carrots
Orange Ice in Orange Cups
Chocolate Cookies, Ginger Ale."
---America's Cook Book, The Home Institute of the New York Herald Tribune [Charles
Scribner's Sons:New York] 1937 (p. 861)
"Hallowe'en Party
Write your Hallowe'en invitations on cutouts of black cats, cauldrons, scarecrows, pumpkins or
witches. Use black or orange paper and write the invitation in the form of a jingle or just a note.
Room decorations are a simple matter for they can be as casual as you like. Spread a few sheaves
of corn around the room or stand up some stalks of corn amid a profusion of gay autumn leaves.
Orange or black candles or orange bulbs--just a few to create an eerie effect--can be used to
provide the light. Large cutouts of black cats, withces, or pumpkins pined to the walls around the
room, brilliant orange, yellow, or red tablecloths of cotton or old sheets dyed in any of those
colors enhance the them of the party. Playing games that originate from the character of the
occasion, like pulling fortunes form the witches' cauldron or spirit rapping, are times fo interest
for this type of party. And don't forget that traditional cider and doughnuts, orange and black
candies, ice cream molds with a pumpkin, or made-with-honey pumpkin pie contribute much in a
decorative way."
"Halloween Refreshments
(1) Cider and Doughnuts
(2) Pigs in Blankets, Carrot Straws, Ripe Olives, Orange Sherbet, Chocolate Cupcakes with
Orange Butter Icing (Jack O'Lantern faces traced on icing with melted chocolate)."
---Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, revised and enlarged second edition [McGraw-Hill
Book Company:New York] 1956 (p. 51)
"Halloween Party
No other time of year provides a better opportunity fo rthe colorful decorations children love so
well...Use Halloween paper plates and napkins. Fill small paper cups with assorted Halloween
candy; set at each place. Let your child help make the invitations--orange jack-o-lanterns or round
black cats, cut out of construction paper. Make costumes mandatory. Have a prizes for the best.
Menu: Sloppy Joes, Halloween Cake (Chocolate Cake with Fudge Frosting, Decorated with
Candy Corn, Ice Cream, Hot Cocoa."
---McCall's Cook Book [Random House:New York] 1963 (p. 634-5)
About these notes: Food history can be a complicated topic. These notes are not meant
to be a
comprehensive treatment of the subject, but a summary of salient points supported with culinary
evidence. If you
need more information we suggest you start by asking your librarian to help you find the books
and articles cited in these notes. Article databases are good for locating current recipes, consumer
trends, and new products.
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Research conducted by Lynne
Olver, editor The Food
Timeline. About this site.