Enough with your black cats and bats; your ghouls ad goblins. Hallowe’en, All Hallows’ Eve — does anyone even know what it is? An opportunity for kids to get up in costume and creep from house to house begging for treats? An opportunity for parents to monitor the consumption of the eight pounds of collected candy as their kid scampers ever closer the abyss of diabetic shock. And the a one-day reversal of childhood’s warning: don’t accept candy from strangers.

It’s not about costumes and free candy.

Hallowe’en is only the herald, the anticipatory day, of the actual holiday that medieval Christian Europeans were expected to celebrate — All Saints' Day, November first.

Halloween originated in the British Isles out of this pagan Celtic celebration called Samhain (sow-en). On this day, spirits rose from the dead and mingled with the living. Fun. The Celts left food at their doors to lure good spirits and wore masks to scare off the evil ones. The invading Christian Romans added a few of their own traditions to the celebration of Samhain — the end harvest season and honoring the dead. All Saints' Day was instituted as a permanent holiday in 609 CE. November 1st would be forever known as All Saint's Day (la Toussaint to the French), in celebration of saints who do not, as yet, have their own holy day. The next day, All Soul’s Day, was the day to pray for the wandering Souls who had not yet found their way into heaven. So the over-arching theme is about the dead. And food … always, food.

During the Irish potato famine emigration of the 1840s, Halloween found its way to the United States where it developed, over time, into a more secular holiday, some might say a children's holiday of tricks and treats. The favorite pranks, or tricks, in 19th century New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates. Daring.

The custom of ‘treating’ is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called “souling”. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread speckled with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would earnestly promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives (in limbo) of the donors. Limbo is now (you may have heard), well, in limbo, and may be abolished by Pope Benedict.

In Sicily, The Festival of the Dead (il giorno del morte) is one of the most important events on the liturgical calendar. The second of November is a festival day when children, according to tradition, would be visited in the night by long dead relatives who would leave behind traditional cakes, sweets like ‘bones of the dead’ cookies and almond paste fashioned to resemble fruits. The luckier ones might receive toys and puppets made from boiled sugar.

In Mexico it’s El Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. While All Saints' and All Souls' Days are celebrated in all Catholic countries, no other nation has embraced the festival of The Day of the Dead, or taken it to such giddy extremes as have the Mexicans. The celebration begins on the evening of October 31, so the name Los Dias de los Muertos is also often used. This three-day festival is considered by many to be the most important holiday of the year in Mexico.

The big dish, Pan de Muerto, Day of the Dead bread, is simply made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, orange peel, anise and yeast. They are decorated with strips of dough simulating bones and small round pieces of dough symbolizing teardrops. Pan de Muerto are then placed on candle strewn altars or ofrendas, and even taken to family tombs in graveyards.

These celebrations of the dead and the afterlife cannot be separated from food. Food, like sex, is the ever-present symbolic re-affirmation of life. So, for all those so concerned with authenticity on other aspects of life, do a little soul-searching, so to speak. Get down to the mandrake roots of the holiday. Doctors, witches, clowns, hobos, pirates, Darth Vaders and Little Mermaids be-gone! Bring on the dead … and some Pan de Muerto.