The Origin of Halloween Foods
Why the Pumpkin, Apple and Sweets are Eaten at All Hallows Eve
Sep 21, 2009
Halloween is an ancient tradition that goes back thousands of years. It was believed by the ancients that at All Hallows Eve the veil between the land of the living and the land of the dead drew thinner than at any other time of the year. This was the perfect time of year therefore for fortune telling, rituals and celebrations in memory of those that had passed.
But how did these celebrations become so inescapably interlinked with the pumpkin, the apple and sweets? Pumpkins are often carved in the shape of heads with grotesque faces, lit and placed outside on Halloween night. Apple bobbing is an old custom of catching apples, placed in a bucket of water, with your teeth. And of course Trick or Treat just couldn’t exist without the “treat” – in modern times, these are sweets or candy.
Why Pumpkins Are Associated With Halloween
It is believed in Celtic and Pagan folklore that a candle, placed on a windowsill on Halloween night, will guide the way for those spirits of the family to find their way home so that they can join in the celebrations. Over time, vegetables were hollowed out and used as basic candle-holders and lit to guide the way for the departed. Turnips, up until the nineteenth century, were one of the most common foods used for this.
Once the immigration to the Americas took off in the 1800s however, people started to use the native pumpkin – it was larger, easy to carve and plentiful at this time of year. The old legend of the Jack O’ Lantern is believed to have originated in Ireland and describes a greedy, gambling and hard drinking farmer (called Jack) who tricked the Devil up into a tree and then carved a cross in it so he could not come down. He was spurned by St Paul in Heaven for his greedy life while alive, and refused entry to Hell by the Devil. In revenge, the Devil cursed Jack to wander over the Earth at night with a candle inside a hollowed out turnip to light his way.
How Apples came to be used at Halloween
The apple has long been a magical symbol for a number of different cultures and civilisations. The Romans worshipped a goddess named Pomona, who represented the harvest. She was often depicted sitting on a basket of apples. It represents a hopeful fertility and harvest, at a time when people would have been harvesting crops now but looking forward to cold and barren winter months ahead of them.
Furthermore, if an apple is cut along its width, the core inside resembles the shape of the pentacle or five pointed star, the Wiccan symbol of the five elements. This solidifies its association with Halloween, the time of all things mystical.
Nowadays, apples are dipped into syrup and speared with sticks to make toffee apples, and are used to play apple bobbing, a traditional Halloween game. Many spells involve the use of an apple, one of the most well-known being that if you can peel an apple completely leaving the long winding skin intact and then throw it over your shoulder, it will form the initial of the person you are destined to marry once it hits the floor!
The Beginning of Trick or Treat and its Association with Sweets
One of the most common modern practices of Halloween is the sound of children knocking on doors and yelling “Trick or Treat”, bright orange plastic buckets waiting to be filled with all sorts of different sweets. This tradition is thought to originate from the old European custom of “souling”. Beggars would wander houses on All Soul’s Day (actually 2 November, a few days after Halloween), asking for food in return for prayers for the dead relatives of that household. It was believed that many people praying for one person could actually speed up their journey to Heaven. Many wills from Medieval and Tudor England request that prayers be said after one has died as a matter of course.
Over the years, the home-made bread and cakes were replaced with the more widely available sweets, chocolates and brightly coloured candy shapes and it is estimated that 80% of Americans now buy candy in expectation of Trick or Treaters knocking on their doors (Gallup, 30 October 2007).
The Historical Use of Halloween Foods Lives On Today
Halloween is traditionally a time of mystical things – spirits, rituals and the coming together of family, from this world and the next. Whenever celebrations take place, food becomes tightly linked to the practices and the seasons. Pumpkins and apples were used because they are abundant at this time of year, and sweets replaced the bread and cakes offered out on All Souls Day. The traditions of these foods are linked to Halloween and it is wonderful that these traditions continue hundreds of years on.
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