Today is Halloween, an old fall celebration with roots in Celtic druid customs that, over the course of a few millennia, has evolved into the raucous, ghoulish, trick-or-treat sugar festival we observe today.
When my daughter was a toddler, we baked sugar cookies in the shapes of skeletons and black cats. Now, all she wants to do is don a costume and hit the streets with her buddies to collect enough candy to last until Christmas. It is my responsibility to ensure that she eats a substantial meal before leaving the house.
Rice and beans, smothered in spicy sauce for the grownups; grilled cheese, either pure and basic or fancy with caramelised onions; a hearty pot roast; or a cheesy broccoli casserole as ballast against the sweet assault are among our faves. For more cookie, candy, and meal ideas, please go to our top Halloween recipes.
That will enough for tonight. How does the remainder of your week look? Ali Slagle has developed a delicious new recipe for pan-seared pork chops with dates and kale cooked in the rendered pig fat. You might serve it with Kay Chun’s ingenious recipe for mashed potatoes, which requires roasting the potatoes so they remain fluffy and creamy after mashing. You may want to reserve this game-changer until Thanksgiving.
Also new from Kay is an appetizing-appearing salad with raw cauliflower, walnuts, and Parmesan. I often consume roasted cauliflower and sometimes forget that it is equally delicious when eaten raw, when it is sweet and mild in flavour. Moreover, the crunch!
These and the other tens of thousands of recipes accessible at New York Times Cooking need a paid membership. You may also find us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, where Eric Kim created not one, not two, but three delectable kimchi varieties. His recipes for baek kimchi (white kimchi) and traditional kimchi are provided below.
Did you know that trick-or-treating in Scotland is a more mutual affair? According to Jemma Beedie’s explanation in Gastro Obscura, dressed bands of youngsters must perform a song or joke prior to receiving candy. This seems to be a more balanced system than what we have built in the United States. Nonetheless, I like sitting on the porch and handing out candy to the procession of princesses, ghosts, and skeletons that run past with their bags open and masks awry.
What is your favourite Halloween candy, and do you purchase it so you can steal some for yourself? Or do you stock up on brands you don’t like to prevent yourself from overindulging? Mini Good & Plenty, little York Peppermint Patties, and mini Butterfingers are my weakness. However, I always give my child separate packages of gummy bears and blow pops, which I could care less about.
However, Halloween is not just about sweets. These gloomy autumn dusks often have a horrific tint. The danse macabre is, of course, the mediaeval motif of skeletons dancing with the living to teach us that life is brief and meaningless. It also seems to be a fantastic Halloween party. I believe that many of us may connect to the theme’s popularity during periods of pestilence.
Because of this, I was captivated by Carl Zimmer’s article in The Times about scientists who analysed mediaeval skulls and concluded that the Black Death may have significantly altered the human DNA. If we pay carefully, skeletons may still demonstrate certain movements.