Non-Candy Halloween Treats Then and Now

One daughter was home today, doing work for her other two jobs. Her main income-producing job is as a substitute teacher in our local school district. In the past, she has mentioned the goodies that teachers and staff bring in regularly, some for rewards for students, some for the teachers only.

The other day I saw a memo being passed around social media encouraging people to give out non-candy treats this Halloween. Suggestions included packaged chips, pretzels, cookies and mini muffins, protein bars, pouches or boxes of juice, packages of ramen (ramen has been a popular food with teens and tweens for the last several years), microwave mac and cheese, and pudding cups. Many people on social media complained about not giving out candy to kids. But others chimed in that their kids already get a lot of candy in their everyday life and might appreciate a non-candy treat. I know my own kids regularly got candy at church/Sunday school and at youth group. (We homeschooled through 8th grade, so the only candy they got in those years of school was controlled by me.)

I asked my daughter if kids get much candy at school these days. She said yes, usually as rewards. One teacher she regularly subs for allows his students to earn points to be spent in the classroom "store" on Fridays. They earn points for good behavior, completing assignments on time, and good citizenship in the classroom. The store contains various snack foods, but also full-sized candy bars. His classroom is a SPED class for high school, and he's found success in getting student cooperation by offering those sorts of rewards. My daughter agreed that many kids these days have lots of opportunities to eat candy.

In our house, we've been at least offering a non-candy treat, some years only giving out non-candy treats, for many, many years. The first year we did this, I offered a choice between cheese and cracker hand-i-snacks and a traditional candy bar. All of the hand-i-snacks were gone in 30 minutes. We've also given out packages of pretzels, mini playdough, containers of slime, and small bags with stickers, tattoos, Halloween-themed trinkets and small amounts of candy. For the last several years we've given out individual packages of cookies. We've had kids be super-duper excited about getting these candy-alternatives. We've had parents thank us for giving out something other than candy. And we've had a couple of older kids be not quite so excited, but always said thank you.

My daughter said she couldn't remember when we just gave out candy. I then went on to tell her about my mother's recollections about trick-or-treating in the 1940s. My grandparents moved around the country a lot during the war, following my grandfather's job working for a military contractor. So the treats my mother received varied from region to region. But for the most part, she said her small bag was filled with home-grown fruit (apples, mostly), nuts in the shell, homemade cookies, small paper bags of popped corn, an occasional homemade popcorn ball, a couple of small pieces of candy (Tootsie Rolls were popular), and a penny or two. She said the pennies were one of the most exciting things to receive, as it meant she could go with her own mother to the store and choose a piece of candy, or she could put trick-or-treat pennies together with other saved pennies and buy a small plaything, like a game of Jacks. In my mother's day, receiving anything felt special this one day of the year. Aside from birthdays and Christmas, receiving gifts and prizes of any sort just didn't happen. Any rewards they received were often in the form of award ribbons, not toys, playthings, or candy. These days, kids get prizes and rewards all of the time. 

My daughter was very surprised to hear of how little candy my mother actually received trick-or-treating. In my kids' childhood, they came home with bags of almost exclusively candy. 

In my own childhood, we received a lot of candy, but also occasional cookies, baggies of chips or popped corn, pennies, some apples, and chewable waxed novelties. But it was mostly candy.

Perhaps because my mother had received so many non-candy treats on Halloween as a child, it seemed perfectly okay to offer kids cookies, apples, baggies of potato chips, and pennies when we would run out of Halloween candy in our own home in the 1960s. Our neighborhood had so many children, I'm sure we had around 100 trick or treaters every year, and it was practically a given we'd run out of the "real" treats. Were kids always happy to get an apple in the 1960s? I don't think so. I'm not sure I'd give an apple these days. I would fear it would be thrown through a window by some unsatisfied trick-or-treater.

But I do think there's a place for some non-candy treats as handouts for Halloween. Kids will get plenty of candy this Friday. My house will just provide some variety to their trick-or-treat bags.

I know I'm in the minority, here

As I walk around our neighborhood, I see all of these beautiful pumpkins on front porches. They look so cheery. The day after Halloween, however, many will end up in the garbage. I can't help but think these are food! I know I'm in the minority with this thought, but they can be cooked for people food, or cut up and fed to wildlife or pets. It just makes me sad to think this food won't be eaten.

To use as food

The flavor of carving pumpkins is not the same as pie pumpkins. Carving pumpkins tend to be bland. They also tend to be stringy. But I've found that running the cooked flesh through the food processor takes care of stringiness. As for flavor, I use the pureed pumpkin spiced in many applications, such as quick bread, cookies, smoothies, pie and cakes. Carving pumpkins tend to have less natural sugar than pie pumpkins, which actually makes the former more suitable for broths or neutral soup bases for vegetable soups, or for pasta sauce along with the addition of sage and Italian sausage, or in pumpkin curries.

Feeding wildlife

As for feeding carving pumpkins to wildlife, so long as it isn't contaminated with something like paint or candle wax, fresh pumpkin is safe for animals to eat. Birds and squirrels love the seeds. Squirrels will happily nibble on small chunks of raw pumpkin. Dispose of any remaining pumpkin pieces after a few days, as rotting or fermenting pumpkin could be harmful. The major issue with feeding wildlife pumpkin for a prolonged period is it could encourage the presence of undesirable rodents.

For your pets

Cut into small chunks and steamed until soft, some dogs enjoy cooked pumpkin, according to petmd. But consult with your veterinarian before messing with your pet's diet. Backyard chickens enjoy pecking at pieces of pumpkin, not as a substitute for their regular food, but as an addition. 

A last thought

If you just can't bring yourself to eat a Jack o' lantern pumpkin and you don't want to feed it to critters, wild or domesticated, pumpkin can also be used to "feed" your compost pile. Depending on what else is in your pile, chunks of fresh pumpkin could speed up the decomposition with the addition of moisture and nitrogen in the fresh pumpkin. 

Although I grow some pumpkins in my little patch, I also buy a couple of carving pumpkins each October. At 38 cents per pound, carving pumpkins are a super cheap vegetable. In fact, this year, I bought 2 pumpkins earlier this month, and then today I went back to WinCo and bought 1 more. I won't carve them. Instead, in the first week of November I'll begin cooking, pureeing, and freezing these pumpkins to use throughout the next year. I know, I'm in the minority here when it comes to buying Jack o' lanterns for people food.