When you think of Halloween, you probably think first of trick-or-treating. It’s been an American tradition for more than a century, where costumed children ring doorbells in hopes of filling their bags with candies and treats by the handful. While candy corn and mini chocolate bars wrapped in orange and black wrappers are certainly synonymous with Halloween, the holiday’s food traditions run far deeper.
Halloween is rooted in the ancient Irish festival of Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It was a time to allow the fields to rest before replanting in the spring. Herdsman brought their cattle from summer pasture back home and selected which animals to cull and which to keep. Everyone hoped their summertime harvest would be enough to last their family through a dark, wet, and chilly winter. In essence, the holiday is deeply tied to the changing of seasons and the lives of a pastoral people who depended entirely on the land for their health and fortune.
