The Scary Herbs of Halloween
The Herb Companion^[01]
October/November 2007 issue
by Joanna Poncavage

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Get the scoop on the season’s spookiest fruits and herbs!

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It’s a dark night in autumn. Days are becoming shorter and colder. Harvest time is ending, and pantries are being stocked with fruits and nuts for winter. Inside, beside a warm fire, an old uncle tells ghost stories. Firelight gleams on a bowl of red apples, ready for fortune telling and games. Spiced cider flows, and young people, some wearing odd costumes, dance under the flickering light of turnip lanterns.

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Turnip Lanterns?

Many customs of the holiday we call Halloween date to traditions across prehistoric Europe. But turnip lanterns, at least in the United States, have been replaced by easier-to-carve pumpkins, with—let’s face it—more impressive, large, orange shapes. A glowing turnip or pumpkin, however, has the same purpose: to drive away the darkness, scare away the spooks, and light the way to the next party.

Centuries ago, when rooms were illuminated by fire, Europe’s inhabitants were farmers or herders whose lives depended on knowing the rhythms of the year. Halloween (or Samhain, as it once was called) falls on the midpoint between the fall equinox and the winter solstice. According to the Celtic calendar, which began its holidays on the eve before, Halloween was the start of the new year.

“To understand the significance of these seasonal festivals, we need to step back in time for a moment, closer to the food production cycle than most of us are today,” says Bettina Arnold, co-director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Celtic Studies. Certain food plants had important ties to the holiday’s meaning.

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First the Apple  

Native to eastern Turkey and southwestern Russia, apples have a long relationship with civilization and its myths and symbols. As members of the rose family, apples and their flowers have associations with Venus, goddess of love and fertility.

Poised on the threshold of the new year, Halloween was viewed as a time when it was possible to see into the future, and fortune telling often involved love and marriage predictions. An apple peel thrown over the shoulder, for instance, could predict the first letter of a true love’s name. Peeling an apple in front of a mirror by candlelight might reveal an image of a lover. And the first person to bite an apple floating in a dish of water would be the first to wed (not to mention that apple bobbing might provide quite an opportunity for real-time flirting).

Grown from seed, apples tend to revert to wild species with small, sour fruit. Gradually, over many thousands of years, improved selections were preserved by grafting. Carried by traders, invaders and Romans into Europe, apples were brought to the New World by the first colonists in the 1600s, and the first orchard was said to be planted near Boston in 1625.

Today, 2,500 varieties of apples are grown in the United States, including 100 in commercial production. Red Delicious and Golden Delicious are the two most popular varieties, but one attraction of growing apples in a home orchard is to experience the rare, more historic types. The Lady or Api apple is one of the oldest, dating to 15th-century France. It’s aromatic and sweet, but susceptible to apple scab (a fungal disease) where springs are wet.

More practical growers should consider the newer, disease-resistant varieties, such as Liberty, a type of McIntosh developed in New York in 1962. Between the old and the new are hundreds of choices for baking, cooking, saucing and eating fresh. Before planting an apple tree, consult your county’s cooperative extension for recommended varieties and regional advice. Then commit to a routine for pruning, fertilizing, watering and pest control.

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Pumpkins Light the Way  

“Pumpkins carved as jack-o’-lanterns would not have been part of traditional Halloween festivals in Celtic Europe, since pumpkins are New World plants,” Arnold says. Instead, the Europeans hollowed out large turnips, carved faces into them and placed them in windows to ward off any evil spirits.

The turnip-carving tradition survives today. Every November, the village of Richterswil on Lake Zurich in Switzerland is filled with thousands of glowing turnips, brightened from within by candles. Cultivated in Europe for 4,000 years, turnips seem to have a greater appreciation there than here.

Arriving in the New World, colonists found Native Americans growing pumpkins and eventually adapted them to Halloween purposes. They also took a step toward pumpkin pie by filling pumpkins with milk and spices and baking them whole on the hearth.

Pumpkins with “sugar” or “pie” in their names, such as Small Sugar or New England Pie, are likely to have good taste and texture for pies, although butternut squash or neck pumpkins will provide smooth, flavorful, non-stringy flesh for recipes, too.

All pumpkins and squash belong to the genus Cucurbita. C. moschata varieties are widely used for commercial canned pumpkin. Looking to grow a big one? Choose one of the C. maxima varieties, such as Atlantic Giant or Prizewinner. For cuteness in a pumpkin, C. pepo includes miniature varieties such as Jack-Be-Little and Munchkin.

Pumpkins are easy to grow, given enough water, fertilizer and space. The sprawling vines can be vigorous, so allow about 100 square feet for each hill of two or three plants. Prepare the soil by digging in several inches of compost or composted manure. Sow the seeds in warm soil, after threat of frost has passed. The maturity date for the variety and the length of your growing season will determine the exact sowing date. Harvest when the pumpkins are a deep, solid color and the rind is hard. Leave 3 to 4 inches of stem attached to the pumpkins when cutting them from the vine, and store them in a moderately warm, dry place.

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The Journey to the Otherworld  

The Celts believed that the souls of people who had died that year journeyed to the spirit world during Halloween/Samhain. The holiday’s bonfires and glowing turnips helped the dead on their journey while protecting the living, according to Jack Santino, a professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University who studies celebrations and their cultural meaning.

The living might have found protection by carrying a piece of asafetida in their pockets. Asafetida is an herbalresidue so vile smelling it was also called “devil’s dung.” A resin obtained from the root of Ferula assa-foetida  (fennel-like plants native to the Middle East), asafetida once was used widely in medicine and in cooking. (Its flavor reportedly improves greatly when diluted in hot oil.)

German immigrants brought the practice of carrying asafetida for protection to this country, and you still can find this unusual herb for sale in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where much of the German culture survives, herbalist Jesse Tobin says. Tobin is a founder of The Three Sisters Center near Kutztown, Pennsylvania, which offers an herbal guild, workshops and demonstrations of Pennsylvania German healing and spiritual traditions.

But perhaps the plant with the strongest ties to Halloween was the elderberry, Sambucus nigra. A small, bushy tree with white flowers and almost black berries, the elderberry was associated with the Germanic goddess Holle (or sometimes Hulda) and was named Hollerbeier for her. Guardian of the dead, the goddess survives today in caricature as a Halloween witch. But as Frau Holle, she was a caring grandmother and wise crone. She helped souls cross over and took messages to them—perhaps written in elderberry juice ink.

In North America, European immigrants found their elderberry’s close relative, S. canadensis, and continued their traditions. People carried pieces of its wood for protection, tied prayers to its branches and left apples beneath it as offerings. “When you think of the magical plants of the Pennsylvania Dutch, the elderberry is number one,” Tobin says.

The elderberry also has been revered for its health benefits since the time of Hippocrates. A tea from its flowers treats cold and flu symptoms, substantiated by the German Commission E (that country’s equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration), and its berries are rich in antioxidants and vitamin C. “Elderberry was so important in Europe, and in almost all cases, it has the same associations,” Tobin

[Joanna Poncavage is a Pennsylvania journalist and author who frequently writes about gardens, plants and the Pennsylvania Germans]

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The History of Halloween^[02]

Ancient Origins

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced Sah-Ween). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints’, All Saints’, and All Souls’, were called Hallowmas.

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Modern Traditions

The American tradition of “trick-or-treating” probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives.

The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.

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Evolution Of A Holiday

As European immigrants came to America, they brought their varied Halloween customs with them. Because of the rigid Protestant belief systems that characterized early New England, celebration of Halloween in colonial times was extremely limited there.

It was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups, as well as the American Indians, meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance, and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland’s potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that, on Halloween, they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings, or mirrors.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft.

At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season, and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.

By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular, but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague Halloween celebrations in many communities during this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday.

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