It’s one of our greatest food holidays, never mind that there's rarely ever any cooking involved. It’s Halloween. So what if most of the food that makes this holiday tick is store-bought candy, dispensed one little bit at a time from your front steps?
Without that there is no Halloween, not really, not for kids, where every other iteration of Halloween starts out anyway, all the spooky movies and adult costume parties and such. Halloween candy is our first food crush, and the basis for a certain social pact.
The spirit of Halloween is one kid, one house, one piece of candy and a line of memories made on one side of the transaction and rekindled on the other.
Within that there is ritual and symbolism, and, I really believe, a chance for a greater social connection, something we feel in dire need of today.
Candy is the medium. In a holiday suspension of nutritional disbelief, a hunk of nougat covered in chocolate becomes an act of generosity, hospitality, even civic engagement.
You get to watch your neighborhood come together and participate in some make belief to make kids happy, a community effort where all other differences can at least temporarily vanish, like a ghost.
There is no itinerary or agenda, no sponsor no ticket and no axe to grind, unless some kid is dressed as a dungeon executioner, of course.
Halloween is a family holiday, and it’s a social one too.
Is there sometimes an ice chest for adults next to the candy bowl for kids? Maybe, maybe. Leave it to New Orleans to make trick-or-treating feel a little bit like tailgating.
But when it gets right down to it, Halloween is a spontaneous public celebration that has some generally accepted framework but relies entirely on people playing along and making it their own. Just swap beads for candy and we could be talking about Mardi Gras. No wonder New Orleans is so good at Halloween.
In this case though, the parade comes to you, one gaggle, group or solo trick-or-treater at a time. You just have to have the candy. And that’s why, even if you’re not dressed up in a costume on Halloween, you still have a role to play.
