Traditional food for an Irish Halloween - Celtic Canada (2024)
In times past and just as much today, an Irish Halloween is a harvest festival celebrated with a feast for the family.
With the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain falling on the last day of October and start of November, the harvest was in, food was plentiful and a huge feast of seasonal fare played a major part of the celebrations.
Turnips, apples and apple cider, mulled wines, gourds, nuts, beef, pork, poultry, ale – the Samhain recipes concocted from the harvest brought the community together as work halted, feasting started and the Celts ate the fruits of their labour, told stories and tried to predict their fortunes in the future.
Traditionally Irish foods at Halloween contain no meat, as when Samhain eventually merged with the Christian All Hallows Eve, the day before All Saints Day, to create Halloween, it was a day of preparation and fasting. With the food becoming anything vegetarian, Halloween was celebrated with the likes of potato dishes including champ, boxty, fadge – a type of apple cake – as well as fruit, nuts,barmbrack bread and a good colcannon dinner.
Colcannon, simple and uniquely Irish, has become popular all around the world. Made with potatoes mashed and mixed with chopped kale or green cabbage and onions, it is a lovely warming autumnal dish to have on Halloween night before you head out for an evening of fun and mischief.
Irish homes would traditionally be filled with the smell of baking bread over the open fire, and another delicious treat known as barmbrack becomes special in the weeks leading up to Halloween. This dried fruit-studded bread comes from the Irish‘bairín breac’,which literally means speckled loaf.
While barmbrack is eaten all year round, it is only at Halloween that charms are added to the mix, each having a fortune-telling significance for the year ahead – and asthis recipe for barmbrackshows, the fruits can be soaked in whiskey, tea, or both, which gives an added richness to the flavour.
Everyone in the family gets a slice of the bread, but you have to be careful when chewing and about what you find. A ring signifies the discovery of true love and marrying, a thimble means you will never marry, a rag predicts poverty while a finding a coin foretells that you will be rich.
Apples have always been associated with Halloween, though in Ireland they should never be picked during this time because it was believed the púca (fairy shapeshifters) spat on them the night after Samhain.
In modern Ireland this traditional foodstuff may take the form of apple monsters, creepy apple bites and apple pies with ghost-white cream to fit with an endless array of children’s treats that can involve anything from black widow spider biscuits, cranberry flavoured vampire juice and extra-devilled eggs.
In old Ireland, after a supper of colcannon the young people used the apple just as well, allowing its peel to fall on the ground in the belief that it would show the initial letter of a sweetheart’s name, or ducking for apples in a barrel or basin of water – as still happens today.
Another favourite Halloween pastime for courting couples was to sit around the fire telling stories and roasting nuts. In Ireland, the old ways are the best.
Barmbrack is a traditional Irish bread that's associated with Samhain, and it is still typically served during Halloween festivities there today. Barmbrack is a mildly sweet bread, studded with dried fruits like raisins and flavored with fresh citrus zest.
Barmbrack is a traditional Irish bread that's associated with Samhain, and it is still typically served during Halloween festivities there today. Barmbrack is a mildly sweet bread, studded with dried fruits like raisins and flavored with fresh citrus zest.
Probably the best known Irish Halloween tradition is the making of Barnbrack. This is a type of fruit cake which is eaten during Halloween. The tradition is that there is a ring, a coin and a piece of cloth baked in the cake.
Representative dishes include Irish stew, bacon and cabbage, boxty, brown bread (as it is referred to in the South) or soda bread (predominantly used in Ulster), coddle, and colcannon.
With the food becoming anything vegetarian, Halloween was celebrated with the likes of potato dishes including champ, boxty, fadge – a type of apple cake – as well as fruit, nuts, barmbrack bread and a good colcannon dinner. Colcannon, simple and uniquely Irish, has become popular all around the world.
As for meat, they would hunt deer, foxes, beavers, wild boars and bears as well as farm domesticated animals such as chickens, goats, sheep, pigs and cattle. They would also fish for Salmon, Trout or Mackerel. They would also eat eggs from hens and wild birds, along with insects and honey from bees.
Traditionally a harvest of fruit and nuts was gathered for the festive fare and also featured in children's games on the night. Marriage divination games were also played. Hallowe'en was also known as ghost night or spirit night and the souls of the dead were expected to return to the family home.
Oíche Shamhna (the Irish for Halloween, pronounced 'Ee-heh How-na') originated in Ireland, and Samhain (the Irish for November, pronounced 'Sow-in') was the original name of the festival.
Traditions include bonfires, music, feasting, and dancing. Some still make food for the dead, along with offerings of sweets and ales. In the Highlands and Irelands, many small traditions are still upheld. Including leaving a saucer of milk out on Samhain night.
The custom began when children would go from door to door around Halloween. They would often sing songs, say prayers or tell a joke to different households in return for food. They would typically receive a 'soul cake' which was flattened bread mixed with fruit.
In Celtic lore, October 31st is Samhain (All Hallow's Eve, or Halloween): the night when Arawn, lord of the Dead, rides the hills with his ghostly white hounds, and the Faery Court rides forth in stately procession across the land.
Samhain (/ˈsɑːwɪn/ SAH-win, /ˈsaʊɪn/ SOW-in, Irish: [ˈsˠəunʲ], Scottish Gaelic: [ˈs̪ãũ. ɪɲ]), Sauin ( Manx: [ˈsoːɪnʲ]) or Oíche Shamhna (/ˈiːhə ˈhaʊnə/ EE-hə HOW-nə) is a Gaelic festival on 1 November marking the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or "darker half" of the year.
Irish Stew is a thick, hearty dish of mutton, potatoes, and onions and undisputedly the national dish of Ireland. Within the dish are many of the ingredients synonymous with the island, potatoes being one of the most recognized.
While the Reuben sandwich itself doesn't have Irish roots (it was thought to be created in Omaha, Nebraska mid-poker game) the meat inside it – corned beef, does. Well, it kind of does. The Irish-corned beef relationship is considered to be much more Irish-American than it is purely Irish.
Archaeological remains suggest that beef and pork were the most common meat with poultry and game as a supplement. Great hunks of meat were served on bronze, wood, or wicker plates and eaten using the hands and a knife. Cereals were the other main food source as well as seasonal fruit and vegetables.
Because the Celts believed that the barrier between worlds was breachable during Samhain, they prepared offerings that were left outside villages and fields for fairies, or Sidhs.
People wore costumes and masks to disguise themselves as harmful spirits and thus avoid harm. Bonfires and food played a large part in the festivities. The bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into a communal fire, household fires were extinguished and started again from the bonfire.
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