Last weekend we invited a few friends over for dinner and what with it being so close to Hallowe'en, we thought we'd carve a pumpkin to decorate our flat with and cook a seasonal chicken and pumpkin Thai curry. We were quite pleased with the resulting pumpkin, designed by myself and carved with great skill by my husband, Paul.
We were quite surprised to learn that a couple of our dinner guests (who are from Sweden) had never celebrated Hallowe'en and upon doing a bit of research it appears that Hallowe'en is most likely to be of Celtic origin and the traditional practices of dressing up in goulish costume to go 'guising' and carving turnips or swedes into lanterns that originated in Ireland and Scotland have since been adapted by the North Americans to the modern trick or treating and carving of pumpkins into 'jack-o-lanterns'. It is not really celebrated in this form across the rest of Europe, although most European countries celebrate All Saints Day on the 1st of November.
My memories of Hallowe'en from living in Glasgow involved going to costume parties where you would play games like dooking for apples and going guising, which involved getting dressed up in some spooky costume and knocking on your neighbours' doors where you would be invited in and have to perform some sort of party piece before being given sweets, peanuts (or monkey nuts as we used to call them) or money. In England the tradition seems to be very different, usually involving children playing practical jokes and committing acts of vandalism. Children who go trick-or-treating are also not expected to perform a party piece, but will instead knock on doors crying 'trick-or-treat' in order to be rewarded with sweets and money. I think I prefer the Scottish way!
