The origins of tasty Hallowe'en treats

You might be familiar with Hallowe’en and the pagan roots of donning a costume to scare away bad spirits. Or perhaps you know of its predecessor, Samhain (pronounced “sah-win”), the Gaelic festival celebrating the end of the harvest season. There is also the Catholic All Saint’s Day. All of these have a connection to souls who have departed our world.

Perhaps this mystical element is what gives Hallowe’en its edge. There is something crazy about it, encouraging excess and silliness. On any other day of the year, who would tell their kids to gather as much candy as they can carry? When else would you entertain the idea of donning green face paint and a pointy hat, or sporting wings and sparkles in your hair? All Hallow’s Eve is the time when anything goes.

Kids can often dress up for school that day, or some sort of neighbourhood gathering at a mall or community hall if they don’t go trick-or-treating door to door.

Perhaps they dress up as what they want to be when they grow up, or maybe it’s their favourite character in a movie or book. Everyone deserves to feel like a superhero at least once in their lives, don’t you think?

Parents often encourage the sense of mystery around Hallowe’en. My dad worked in the media business, and so, one year he created a scary soundtrack of noises to play as the neighbourhood kids came up the walkway. He hid the tape machine in our milk chute at the front door.

The only problem with my Dad’s nefarious plan was that it was so scary, lots of kids turned around and ran away. The upside was that my brother and I got mini chocolate bars in our lunches for a couple of weeks.

Chocolate bars are popular in Halloween loot, but have you noticed how many treats are unique to this time of year? It might be due to the crazy marketing schemes that our sense of adventure seems to expand in late October.

Do you remember popcorn balls? The urban myth is these first occurred naturally in the late 1800s when extreme Nebraska weather at the end of the season caused them. First, extreme heat made the kernels pop right on the cobs in the fields. Then heavy rain caused the sorghum syrup in the stalks to leak out and stick the popcorn together. This can’t be disproven, as apparently the evidence was eaten by a swarm of locusts very soon after it happened.

How about another treat from the 1800s, candy corn? Did you know it was originally marketed as “chicken feed”? (I bet that person didn’t find much success in a marketing career.)

You might not have bobbed for an apple if you aren’t as old as I am, but do you like candy apples? They were invented in 1908 by a New Jersey candy maker who melted down cinnamon candies to dress up apples because they were a popular fall food.

Caramel apples came later. They were the brainchild of a Kraft employee in the 1950s who was trying to find a way to use up leftover caramels that didn’t get sold at Hallowe’en. (I never did like those little caramels, but that was probably because they got stuck in my braces.)

The other tradition I remember from Hallowe’ens of my childhood is the UNICEF box. We used to get coin donations while trick-or-treating in those cardboard boxes we hung around our necks. The next day we turned them in at school and felt good about doing something charitable amidst all the spookiness.

As a way of keeping alive that gesture of goodwill, I’m sharing a Medieval tradition, when people went door to door asking for food. In exchange, they would pray for loves one who had departed this world.

Those giving food would often give out Soul Cakes, a sort of scone or biscuit that was often studded with dried fruit or raisins. They would feel good sharing food and knowing that someone was thinking of their lost loved ones. The person getting the cake was thanked for their good spirit with some sustenance.

Like most traditions, there is no one recipe or right way to prepare Soul Cakes, but the recipe I’m sharing is one that pays homage to the symbols we love at this time of year.

They don’t keep very long, so find more friends or make new ones to share your cakes with.

You’re welcome to eat them while handing out candy, or maybe for brunch after a costume party. Just be sure not to waste any. This is not a time of year you want to be messing with karma.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.