I saw a candy apple for sale at a grocery store today and had to by and eat it. Candy apples are definitely associated by me with the autumn and Halloween season. I like the ones with the hard red candy coating much more than the caramel coated apples. It's probably because when I was a child we ate many more of the hard coated ones. It got me to think about varies foods that I associate with during Halloween and autumn. I believe we all have childhood memories of traditional foods during a certain time of the year. Halloween is one of those holidays that have plenty of memories for me.
Another food I crave at Halloween time is apple cider. Apples season hits a peak in October, so apple cider makes an appearance everywhere. There is nothing more symbolic of Autumn than a glass of apple cider that is cloudy with all the parts of the apple that have been ground in it and so naturally sweet. It's one "healthy" food I endorse. I have already had many glasses of it this October.
Then there is the Halloween cookie. Every year I made them with Jane when she was small, and she or she and her friends would decorate them at the kitchen table. It reminded me of the times in my boyhood when my mother would do the same for me. I can still see myself decorating with colored icings those sugar cookies shaped in to the images of bats, pumpkins, skeletons and other Halloween symbols. Jane and I did make a few last year( though not with the fun and enthusiasm we showed in her childhood as she and her friends did the decorating of the cookies I baked) and I will offer to do it again this time, for my sake and to pass on the tradition so that when Jane has children she will make Halloween cookies with them as well.
For me candy is also synonymous with Halloween and Autumn. I always over-eat candy that I allegedly buy to hand out Halloween night when trick or treaters appear at my door. I confess to buying my favorites so that I can nibble on some before Halloween night and after on leftovers that were not needed to be handed to trick or treaters.
Many other people like me gain weight during the month of October and blame that constant candy snacking for it. My childhood memories of coming home after trick or treating, emptying my bag of candy spreading all the candy on the living room rug to trade what I didn't like for what I did with other kids who I trick or treated with were replayed when Jane used to do the same thing, as millions of other kids will do again this Halloween night.
I remember then feeling so sorry for the kids whose parents told them something stupid after we returned to our house with our trick or treat candy packed full in our loot bags. After the trades we would make (I don't like nuts in my candy, so I always traded those first)... there was always some jaded parent who would declare to his or her son, "Johnny, you can take only three pieces and we will give the rest away so you won't eat too much candy tonight." It's like a parent telling a child on Christmas morning that he can only have three of the eight presents under the tree. Those insensitive parents were the Scrooges of Halloween, and did not need to be costumed to prove their identity.
It probably ruined the fun of Halloween and trick or treating for those poor kids, and as adults they must be the ones who turn off their porch lights and pretend to be away from home when the children try to trick or treat at their houses. Hmmm Too little candy for them during their childhood, means no candy to give for kids who trick or treat at their houses. It's sad.
I also associate pumpkin sweets with Halloween and autumn. I think I eat the vast majority of pumpkin sweets during October and November. Just yesterday I bought a pumpkin donut at a local bakery. I love pumpkin in sweets except when it is a pumpkin pie. I hated pumpkin pie when I was a child and hate it now. This must be proof that the child is the father of the man. Strange I like just about every other pumpkin sweet and have already had pumpkin ice cream, made pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cake, had a pumpkin shake and a pumpkin smoothie.
Come to think of it, I am stopping this reminiscence now to have my morning breakfast...yep...it will be... pumpkin pancakes.
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