Halloween Soul Cakes and Meat Heads

As best I can tell by employing research via the GoogleMachine, the tradition of tramping out into the chilly evenings around Halloween while masking one's identity and seeking candy delights or other treats is relatively new - the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Expectations today assert that some $2 billion will be spent for candy alone on Halloween. And that:

"... an average Jack-O-Lantern bucket carries about 250 pieces of candy amounting about 9,000 calories and about three pounds of sugar."

Halloween historians of television's History Channel say folks began begging for and receiving "soul cakes" for a promise to pray for dead relatives during England's All Souls Day parades and that donning costumes was based in the idea that one should wear a disguise so that roaming ghosts could not find you. "Soul cakes" sound far more interesting than they actually are.

Today, Halloween treats and foods can be deeply weird - I for one am still oddly fascinated with the Halloween Meat Hand. Meat and ghoulish imagination have also brought us the Halloween Meat Head. Make it cream cheese or jello for "glue" and slather meat around a skull. (none for me, thanks)

Also, Candy Blood, you know, for kids:

Around my home, I have noticed in the last few years that the neighborhood kids seem a little ... different ... and they want bacon.