Halloween Reflections

As Halloween came and went, I got to thinking: what does one traditionally eat for Halloween? I happen to co-host two different podcasts, both of which did Halloween episodes. On both episodes, food was a significant part of the discussion, but it was largely - if not solely - dedicated to the food gathered by children in costume on Halloween night. We talked about the “dad tax”, the favorite candies over the years, the people in the neighborhood who gave raisins or popcorn balls, and asked the question: do we still need to take our bags to be xrayed before eating anything? What we did NOT ask was this: what would a traditional Halloween dinner look like?

I have to admit that when I posed that question to myself, my self was stumped. What do you eat that can be interrupted 37 times by the doorbell and still be edible at the end? Or on the other extreme, what's the best meal for eating in the dark, hiding from trick-or-treaters? Add to that, we are in Mississippi. Are we inside eating chili or hot soup, with s'mores on the fire pit later in the night? Or are we in shorts grilling hot dogs on the back porch? What did we eat as kids on All Hallow's Eve? Candy, as I recall. Lots of candy.

So I did what any good food culture researcher would do in a situation like this, I went to the World Wide Web. And to make it even more fun, I mostly just looked at pictures. In this situation, that was far more helpful And what I found was basically what I expected. Hypothesis: There are no real traditional Halloween meals, only the same everyday dishes dressed up to be “spooky.” Conclusion: same. But it was still a fun look - here are the ones I found most interesting.

By far, the most popular seemed to be some sort of pasta with meatballs. Spaghetti has been a part of many a haunted house, taking the place of what we'll call “guts.” Bonus points if you color them with squid ink to make them black, or use spinach noodles for the green effect. Meatballs can be decorated with a round bit of mozzarella and a slice of black olive, and voila: now you've got eyeballs.

The biggest cop-out (though probably quite good, and great for kids) was something I'll just call the Jack-odilla. Or a quesa-lantern. It's a quesadilla, but the top tortilla has a jack-o-lantern face cut into it. Easy cheesy.

If we stay in the Jack-olane for a moment, I also saw many pix of orange peppers with faces cut out. Some seemed to be stuffed with whatever one normally stuffs peppers with. Some were filled with spaghetti which was oozing out of the eyeholes. Creative, I suppose, but not terribly kid friendly (at least mine wouldn't have been interested), and what are you gonna do with all the red and yellow peppers left over from the tri-color pepper bag?

There were also a lot of mummies, usually involving something stuffed into a puff pastry or the like. Undead in a Blanket, I guess.

For the hipster Halloween eater wanting to get an early start, I saw some interesting photos of avocado toast. I probably only need to say Frankenstein for you to visualize this. Square bread, green face, black hair made from sheets of seaweed or black olives. Maybe toast is not your thing - instead you have been assigned to take a dip to a party. Why not shape your guacamole into a face and make the hair, scars, etc from blue corn chips? You are welcome.

One pic showed a cylindrical tube-like fried object - not sure if it was fried cheese, fish sticks, or chicken, but they were made finger-like by adding a half grape tomato to the end, like a painted nail. So THAT'S what they mean when they say “chicken fingers!” Another finger picture actually kinda' creeped me out. They were regular hot dogs, but a fingernailsized area had been shaved off one end, and there were cuts made at the same joints where a straight finger wrinkles at the knuckles. I think I might have struggled at that party.

Perhaps another that was kinda' gross, kinda comical, was the “feet loaf.” Are you picturing this yet? Two giant feet on a pan, made out of meatloaf. And on some of the examples, where the loaf was cut just around the ankle, that's where they centered the tomato sauce. So yeah. Severed feet. Great - my kids didn't like meatloaf anyway.

The most ambitious projects were the ones who essentially had an entire body laid out on the table like a buffet. At one party the unfortunate guest actually had a shirt and pants that were cut down the center, and what stood out the most was the pile of smoked sausage rounds occupying the belly region. It was hard to tell from the picture what was where the heart should be. And they had chicken wings and such in the pants - nice, but it really should have been chicken legs at least. Another pic had a skeleton head, and the torso was made up of some big racks of ribs. A little too real, perhaps, but for a good rib, I could probably stomach it. The worst was Meatloaf Man. I'll just leave that to your imagination.

I'm going to give the prize to a recipe I saw for Bat Wings. They marinated whole chicken wings in a sauce that had black food coloring or squid ink (if you've got that kind of thing lying around.) Then after they're cooked, they get a sticky glaze. Black and sticky bats. Tasty wings. Winner. Happy Halloween.