There’s a few cases each year. Usually the cleanup is nasty (toilet paper rolls thrown into trees) but not permanently damaging. Destructive “tricks” (eggs thrown against the house) are performed by people too old for trick-or-treating, but not too old for a beating.
You’ll also hear about the “razor in the chocolate” scare where parents insist on taking the candy apart before allowing it to be eaten. Not sure how widespread actual cases are though (friend-of-a-friend stories were common decades ago).
I do know that pumpkin is eaten, but as has been pointed out and as I specified, lantern pumpkins arent’ eaten. Edible pumpkin is a different variety - they’re small, meaty and sweet, I believe. Our big old stringy lantern pumpkins end up in the trash, unless –
Oh, and EuroDopers, if the trend continues, another Halloween tradition is that some kids will steal and smash your carefully carved jack o’lanterns.
Some shops tries to sell pumkins. With little success it seems, judging by the left over stock. Beoynd that. There’s nothing. Not trick-or-treaters, no dressing up.
Denmark already has a tradition in Feburary where kids dress up (not only scary custumes though) and goes trick-or-treaters - and puts a pussy cat in a barrel before striking it silly with baseball bats. It goes back to the middle ages at least.
To elaborate on Cynical Optomist’s post. The “trick-or-treat” statement is basically kiddie extortion. Granted the kids have no idea what the meaning is these days and say it with innocent glee. It’s not really a request for either by the kids. A verbose translation might be “give me a treat or I’ll play a unpleasant trick on you”. The popular versions of those tricks being egging, TP-ing, ding-dong-ditch and my personal favorite forking.
Pleased as I am to have brightened your day, I now feel obliged to reassure you that no Scandinavians have been harmed in the making of these lanterns.
Besides which, are there any tiny Swedish people? It may be mostly Norwegians and Danes that we get visiting here, but they seem to have a distinct tendency towards being huge (and very nice of course, very nice people) – I can’t imagine many of them having much to fear from a small and wiry Geordie like myself, “not more than one generation out of the mines” as Dr Lecter might put it.
Of course, what he might make of a Swede is best not speculated on. Meatballs, anyone?
I don’t know this about cultural pressure. I do know that Halloween is one of the holidays my kids look forward to the most. It’s the one holiday that really is purely for kids – no one is making them go to church or visit boring relatives. For that reason, Halloween has a certain amount of traction, and if it became commonplace in Europe in my lifetime, I would not be surprised.
No kidding. I got 2 gallons of pumpkin soup, a mess of roasted seeds, and 5 pumpkin cheesecakes out of last year’s big ol’ stringy pumpkin. All of them were excellent.
Give me a chance, I’ve only just found the thread !
and, point of order, surley Hallowe’en started in the “old country” anyway ? Isn’t it the date of the Celtic festival of Samhain and the jack o’lanterns are a throwback to the Celtic belief that the soul resided in the head so enemies heads were displayed around camp perimeters as torches or somesuch ?
Anyway, in the UK (north/midlands) mid seventies the kids from our street would all go trick or treating but only to the houses we knew. We lived on a busy road on the edge of a village and there were plenty of long dark drives with spooky trees to walk down. It had a nice little ‘community’ feel, we were even invited into a couple of houses and only got our ‘treat’ (slice of cake, glass of squash) once we’d done our ‘tricks’ (told a joke, sung a song etc.) There were only about 6 or 7 of us - my brother and I never even had a turnip … just a night-light in a jam jar. I used to love it though, first Hallowe’en, then Guy Fawlkes … Christmas can’t be that far away
Incidentally my Welsh grandmother was horrified at the thought of her grandchildren going out ‘begging’ :eek:
Here in France they’ve gone Hallowe’en crazy. Crazy I tell you. When I lived here in 91/92 no one had a clue what I was talking about, never heard of Hallowe’en and the idea of Trick or Treat was an alien concept. How times have changed Here in Paris the boulangeries and toy shops are decked out in orange and black, pumpkin themed cakes and sweets are on sale. I’ve even had a couple of kids knocking on the door in years past.
You could argue that this is just Paris with Disneyland nearby and the expat pubs promoting the whole thing but a couple of years ago I saw a TV news report about a village down south where they had decided to adopt Hallowe’en and the whole village went trick or treating !! The date generally coincides with the school half-term break and November 1st is a holiday here so I guess it’s as good a time as any to have a party but I’d be happier if they had a reason of their own.
Well, you learn something new every day. I’ve never cooked with pumpkin, but all my recipe books say that these pumpkins are the type to be used for cooking, as they are sweeter, tenderer and meatier than lantern pumpkins. Conversely, the type in the picture doesn’t look like they’d make good lanterns, but what do I know - if one can make lanterns from turnips, where does it all end?
All you have to do is peel the pumpkin (tedious, true,) cut it into chunks, and roast it (low heat) until tender. Puree it in a blender, and you can then use it for any pumpkin recipe. It’s sweet and wonderful. Alternatively, you can roast it at a higher temp until golden brown, and just eat the chunks. Yum.
Here in Paris the boulangeries and toy shops are decked out in orange and black, pumpkin themed cakes and sweets are on sale. I’ve even had a couple of kids knocking on the door in years past.