Halloween Recipes for Spooky Singletons.

I have always loved Halloween. My birthday is in October, and the whole season that surrounds Halloween is my favourite time of the year; peppered with autumnal colours, scarves, changing leaves and the foods that mark the progression from Summer into Autumn, and Autumn into Winter. All of a sudden, my Instagram feed becomes predominantly beige and orange - just like the leaves on the trees - as I find myself cooking butternut squash soup, fruit crumbles, stews and a lot of pies. As such, I couldn't resist having a look through some cook books and databases of nineteenth-century newspapers and periodicals in the hope that I would find some entertaining Victorian Halloween recipes to cook.

While I wasn't exactly expecting to find cakes in the shape of skulls, or cupcakes covered in candy corn, I have to say I was disappointed. No ghoulish desserts or gimmicky appetisers to be found. It seems, albeit from a quick overview, that the Victorians weren't that into Halloween - not enough, at least, to write recipes for it in the way we decorate cookies like ghosts or go mad for pumpkin spice. That being said, I did find a few entertaining Halloween-themed recipes in the Victorian press which I thought were worth sharing.

The 'recipes' I found came from an 1895 article by 'C. H.' in Bow Bell's, an attractive weekly magazine which was published in London between 1883 and 1895 by John Dicks. It called itself 'a magazine of general literature and art, for family reading, illustrated with numerous engravings' and judging from the general content - musings on fashion and society, short stories and advice columns - it would predominantly have been read by middle/upper-middle class women. Indeed, the Halloween recipes within are obviously targeted at young women.
Instead of food recipes they are, bizarrely, love recipes!
So, if there are any spooky singletons out there looking for a halloween beau, these recipes could very well be for you.

What is instantly intriguing about this article is the way that Halloween is aligned with love and courting. I adore the fact that 'matrimonial future' is seen as a 'veil' which can be lifted on Halloween, because the distance between the mortal and spiritual world is narrowed on the 31st of October (C H 1895: 521). It reminds me of ghost stories, or Victorian sensation fiction - after all, what could be scarier to the Victorian woman than the prospect of not marrying someone worthy?! 

The recipes that follow detail ways in which a young woman can determine the future of her love-life. My favourite - and of particular significance to any readers or friends in Scotland - are the instructions for 'Pulling kale stalks' (C H 1895: 521). Apparently, on Halloween night, one should go into a kale field, blindfolded, and the stalk they pull up would represent their future lover... 

...Or if stomping around fields at midnight isn't your jam, you could try a couple of the recipes which the author found in The True Fortune Teller: 

To learn if you will secure the man you wish, wear two lemon peels, one in either pocket all day. At night rub the four posts of the bedstead carefully with the same before retiring. If happiness is in store for you, the apparition of your husband-to-be will appear in a dream and present you with a couple of lemons. (C H 1895: 521)

If you like your love potions to also yield something edible, you could try your hand at Dumb Cake - a combination of flour, salt and pure spring water which you are meant to trace your initials in and then bake before the fire. Turn the cake once before midnight, and hey-presto! Your future husband will miraculously 'enter the room (preferably in some mysterious manner)' (C H 1895: 522). Admittedly, Dumb Cake doesn't sound that appetising. Having a future husband charge through your door summoned by baking, however, would make for an entertaining - if alarming - evening.













So, while these recipes may not involve garish Halloween candy or be for a tasty snack you can eat while watching the Sabrina remake on Netflix, they might succeed in summoning someone to cosy up with this Halloween. Or, you might end up on your own, in a kale field, trying to figure out how wealthy your future partner will be based on how much earth is clumped on the roots you've just pulled up... I take no responsibility for a disappointing kale stalk.


Happy Halloween!

Lindsay











Sources:

C. H. 1895. 'Halloween Customs', Bow Bells: A Magazine of General Literature and Art for Family Reading, 32.412: 521-522 <https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/britishperiodicals/docview/3187589/8DB0C80E05414D9CPQ/1?accountid=14540> [accessed 27/10/2018]