Actual Halloween recipes from North Carolina!

Halloween did not used to be quite the draw that it is now. Old cookbooks have tons of recipes for Christmas, and plenty for Thanksgiving. Easter comes in a distant third. Hell, even Presidents' Day tends to inspire more recipes and menus than Halloween in pre-1980s cookbooks. That's why I was pretty excited to find a couple of Halloween-themed recipes in Old 'n' New Tried 'n' True (Boone Junior Woman's Club, Boone, North Carolina, 1978). 

Witch's Brew sounds from the title like it will be a beverage (maybe even adult beverage, given the word "brew").

But nope! Witch's Brew is not a drink at all, but a Cheez Whiz/ chipped beef/ cream of mushroom/ Tabasco dip, that perhaps involves pecans in some capacity? (They're in the ingredient list, then never mentioned again, which is not so unusual for this book. As my earlier post showed, the Boone women are not always overly concerned with providing clear directions.) Fritos are a tasty dipping medium, but pretzel sticks could be a fun choice so the shredded beef gunk dangling off the dipped ends could turn them into little tiny nasty brooms.

Okay, dipping something salty into a vat of processed salt is sure to create a powerful thirst, so we'll need an actual drink. It's time for Halloween Punch!

I am SOLD on the idea of serving punch from a real pumpkin shell! Rather than trying to make a fancy scalloped edge, though, I'd probably hack off the top and draw a horrified face on the front of the pumpkin to imply that everyone is drinking pumpkin brains. I would also get into a lengthy debate with myself over whether orange was the best drink mix flavor to use-- since orange would, in fact, match the pumpkin's interior and make sense in the world of this sentient pumpkin-- or whether I should go for a red drink mix and cranberry juice since people expect blood to be red and the people-- not the pumpkins-- are my audience. That's just the kind of deep thought I would put into this endeavor before remembering that I hate people and deciding to stop at drawing a horrified face on a pumpkin for my own amusement. No need for a punch bowl if it's only me anyway.

Now I will disappear back into the inky shadows, only to trip on a stack of cookbooks as I go. So much for stealth! Happy Halloweekend!