Halloween

That time of year again. Jack Sparrow outfits left, right and centre here in Singapore (in Hoxton, London, I suspect it is still the bloke off The Clockwork Orange, plus the ubiquitous 'sexy witch/cat/vampire' for girls.)

Tonight it got a Japanese friend and I talking about the festival. So here are some pointers.

The big fancy dress / parties and trick-or-treat stuff all comes from America. And it's quite a modern invention. It's catching on in Europe and other parts of the world now, but traditionally in the UK (for example during my childhood) we had never even heard of trick-or-treat and any fancy dress and partying was reserved strictly for kids. (We would also do harmless things like apple-bobbing*).

In the UK, Halloween has never been a big commercial event like it is in the US. But the roots of Halloween are definitely European. And it's quite complicated!

The word Halloween is a version of 'hallowed evening' (holy evening) because in the Christian calendar, it is the night before two holy days: 'All Hallows' or 'All Saints' day (Nov 1) and then All Souls day (Nov 2) - dates for honouring saints and the recently departed. In Catholic teachings, Halloween was also the date before spirits moved from purgatory (an in-between place) into the afterlife. As a result it was thought that Halloween was the last chance that any angry dead had for revenge on past wrongs before they passed on. So people would dress up to disguise themselves from any vengeful spirits ...though as you will read below, this is not really a Christian idea.

When Protestant Christianity gained a foothold, purgatory was no longer part of the belief system. So the feared spirits on Halloween were believed to be not 'gaining revenge before moving on' but simply evil.

A practice that developed later on was 'souling' where special 'soul cakes' were baked and shared to honour the dead, and (often poor) children would go door to door to collect them. This is thought to be the origin of trick-or-treating, but of course without today's  commercial element.

All sounds plausible. But in fact, the original spring dates for Halloween were changed in 835AD by the Pope. In the same way modern Christmas evolved, today's Halloween was repositioned to coincide with, and be adapted / adopted into an ancient Pagan or Celtic festival, called 'samhain'. Christianity was still relatively new to Western Europe and the British Isles then, and this kind of 'change management' practice seemed to be quite common!

Samhain marked the end of the harvest and signalled the start of dark winter. It was a festival where magic and other spirits were thought to roam about freely - sometimes invoking fear among the people. In order to be seen favourably, not least throughout the coming winter, people would give food offerings to the spirits, and even set dinner places for the dead at home to welcome them and bring good fortune. (You will note striking similarities to the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival!) Bonfires were often lit as part of the cleansing and ceremonial activities - another element which was used in Christian Halloween.

In some Celtic communities, this ancient festival time also involved 'guising' (dressing up as the spirits, or in disguises so that bad spirits would not recognise you) - which is doubtless where today's costumes first derive from. Vegetables like turnips were sometimes carved to resemble spirits' faces and lit to guide the way of the 'guisers'. Hence the jack-o-lantern. A lot of what we know as 'traditional Christian Halloween' is actually ancient and Celtic / Pagan.

Soul cakes are still made today for All Souls day in some parts of the UK

After 1605, Guy Fawkes Night became a big deal in the UK (a topic for an entire other blog I think!) and some of Halloween's traditional elements such as the bonfire were re-appropriated to November the 5th. This probably fit well enough with the Protestant Church of England's lower emphasis on Halloween as a festival. And Halloween's own importance and popularity dwindled. (Until the Americans re-ignited it in their modern 20th century context!)

Shropshire soul cake recipe: http://theordinarycook.co.uk/2011/11/02/soul-cake-a-shropshire-recipe/

* Apple-bobbing
I thought I'd written about this before, but can't find it! Anyway this is a game we used to play in the UK on Halloween (and sometimes Guy Fawkes Night). It entails a barrel full of water with apples floating in it. You hold your hands behind your back and try to pick up a 'bobbing' apple using only your teeth. This particular practice stems from an ancient Roman one. During the fertility festival of Pomona (which fell at roughly this time of year) young people and couples were thought to improve their chances of marriage if they could bob for an apple. I don't think we had any inkling of this when we bobbed for apples as kids in the 1980s!

Photo credits: Wordpress, crazysalad

More reading: The Hungry Ghost Festival

The Pasar Malam

In Singapore, some of these pop up around the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Pasar malam means simply 'night market' in Malay. But these are (often large) temporary market tents with vendors selling halal foods, toys, clothing, household things, electronic goods and lots and lots of bling. There were also quite a few henna hand-painting outfits on our visit. The one we went to at Payar Lebar in July consisted of several huge, circus-sized tents dotted around the free space.

During Ramadan, worshippers are only supposed to eat after sundown - hence I suspect the night market element. And if you are craving fried and spicy snacks or sweets, you will certainly find them here! After the festival, these market tents all disappear.

Worth a visit if you are in Singapore at the right time. (You can click on the photos to enlarge.)

 

 

Things I Miss About the UK No 3: Crumpets

Yep, I think my body is thinking this should be autumn. But I'm in the tropics, so it's not!

Here's another autumn / winter warmer - the humble crumpet! (Toasted hot, and buttered of course!) If you haven't tried one before, it is a neutrally-flavoured cross between maybe a bun and a pancake, with a 'honeycomb' type interior texture a bit like the Pernakan cake kueh ambon.

You must toast crumpets to eat them, and then you would normally let butter or jam, or butter and jam, melt into the holey crumpet structure. After toasting, the underside should get a bit crispy, but the interior remains dense, soft and slightly chewy.
Yum!

My memory of crumpets: family Sunday lunch, followed by a long walk across the fields until it started to get dark (around 3.30-4pm in winter). Heading home, having hot tea and crumpets in the kitchen, leaving the whistling wind, cold and dark outside.

I have not seen any crumpets in Singapore shops - they might sell them at an inflated price at somewhere like M&S. Re-creating the proper setting might prove a bit more difficult, however!


(ps I believe that there is a slightly different recipe for crumpets in Scotland.)

Conkers

I was chatting with a UK teacher friend about going back to school this autumn, and it suddenly brought back a memory of my own secondary school in the UK. It was a school founded in the 1600's. It had a certain Hogwarts feel to it now I look back to my own school years. (But we didn't study anything quite as interesting as magic...)

I actually quite looked forward to the start of Autumn term - the 'new year' back after a long summer break of two or more months. In some ways autumn in temperate countries can bring a melancholy of 'things coming to an end' - the change of the light, the colour of the leaves on trees, the shorter, and colder days - all signals that summer has finished. But with a school year starting, it was also the signal of new things. We might have something cool like a new stationery set to use, and we would of course be in a new classroom, sometimes with a few new schoolmates too.

All this randomly reminded me of the big conker tree outside the building we were housed in when I was 11-12 years old. I don't know if kids do this in other countries, but conkers - the fruits (nuts?) of the Horse Chestnut tree - used to be collected and sometimes used in games by UK children.

Like I said, you find conkers on a Horse Chestnut tree. But in fact they are poisonous to eat (I think for humans and other animals including, ironically, horses). Despite the name, the tree is not a sibling of the 'Chestnut' tree, which produces slightly similar looking fruits ..which are edible and quite nice roasted on a bonfire or used in cakes!

It was a big deal to find the biggest conkers, and one game British children played involved drilling a hole through the nut, threading a string through it, then bashing it against a rival conker. The aim is to crack your opponent's conker, then you win! A conker that has defeated one rival nut is called a 'one-r', two nuts a 'two-er' etc. I am not sure if 'Conkers' is still played much by UK kids, it is an old fashioned game, and fairly rare during my early years in a rural UK town. But there is a World Conkers Championship (which adults also enter) held annually in England today! I think this is a modern festival.

And remember!

The conker or Horse Chestnut - do not eat this!

 

The slightly fuzzier Chestnut - quite tasty when cooked!

 

Further reading: http://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/ ;)

 

Credits for conker game photos: Bookdrum.com; Woodlands Jnr School in Kent.

How to Create a Pom-pom

Hee hee.

This cheerful birthday present just arrived in the post from London. I love it! Very simple to make, but fun and effective (and, very lightweight to post long-distances!)

Make sure the paper is securely tied with the ribbon in the middle.

Carefully puff out the layers of tissue paper...

Hang it up using the ribbon :) 

 

Absence again

Hello Peeps.

I've been injured and laid-up for a few weeks - basically not going out, so doing almost nothing of interest, or worth writing about! Bits and bobs will follow as I start to recover. :)