Saturday, October 31, 2026

Happy Halloween from A Book of Cookrye!

Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope we all stocked up on raisin boxes and toothpaste samples! 

This is a lovely time of the year to eat seasonally. And since this is America, our seasonal foods come from a factory and are 90% corn syrup.


I know that not everyone believes me on candy corn and salted peanuts, and I won't attempt to convert any doubters. But would you reconsider if we add some garnish?


Candy corn seems to be very popular in my little corner of America. All of the supermarkets in town sold out only a few days after it appeared, making me curse myself for waiting for it to go on sale. But I found one last bag of it on the back of a shelf, hiding in the shadows from all but the desperate.  

I don't know why candy corn and salted peanuts go together so well, but they do. Candy corn on its own is rather bland, and salted peanuts are.... well, they're there. But when you put them together, it's like that magical moment when someone combined peanut butter and jelly.

We're going to close with a special Halloween recipe!  

TO ROAST A KID. A kid should be cooked the day it is killed, or the day after at farthest. They are best from three to four months old, and are only eaten while they live on milk. Wash the kid well, wipe it dry, and truss it. Stuff the body with a force-meat of grated bread, butter or suet, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, nutmeg, grated lemon-peel, and beaten egg; and sew it up to keep the stuffing in its place. Put it on the spit and rub it over with lard, or sweet oil. Put a little salt and water into the dripping-pan, and baste the kid first with that, and afterwards with its own gravy. Or you may make it very nice by basting it with cream. It should roast about three hours. At the last, transfer the gravy to a small sauce-pan; thicken it with a little butter rolled in flour, give it a boil up, and send it to table in a boat. Garnish the kid with lumps of currant jelly laid round the edge of the dish. A fawn (which should never be kept more than one day) may be roasted in the same manner; also, a hare, or a couple of rabbits. You may send to table, to eat with the kid, a dish of chestnuts boiled or roasted, and divested of the shells.
Directions for Cookery in its Various Branches, Miss Leslie, 1837

For someone who lived her entire life in fine city houses and hotels, Miss Leslie had some seriously bucolic bluntness.

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8 comments:

  1. Lace makerOctober 31, 2026 at 5:50 AM

    Actually candy corn and peanuts together makes sense. One recipe for homemade butterfinger is to melt candy corn and stir peanut butter in and let it set up before cutting into bars and dipping in chocolate. So maybe you should toss some chocolate chips into that mixture if you can afford them.

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    1. S. S.November 5, 2026 at 10:22 AM

      I wonder if that's any good. A lot of candies never set right when you melt them.
      I will definitely try it with chocolate chips when easter candy corn comes in season. The chocolate-ish autumn mix corn was already really good in this.

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    2. Lace makerNovember 5, 2026 at 1:25 PM

      I've never tried the candy corn version of butterfinger. I make the boiled sugar, water, corn syrup version where you stir in the peanut butter at the end.

      Delete
  2. Poppy CrockerOctober 31, 2026 at 2:45 PM

    For a second, I thought "To Roast a Kid" would be one of those "fun" little "recipes" I sometimes see in community fundraiser cookbooks, like "Recipe for a Happy Husband." But nope-- this is a real recipe for roasting a full baby animal. Definitely Halloween-appropriate.

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    1. Lace makerNovember 1, 2026 at 9:22 AM

      I thought it was going to one of those "fun recipes" too.
      Now this begs the question why did a term for baby goats get applied to human children as well? Is it because they have so much energy, are always getting into something, and will eat anything that they can get in their mouth?

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    2. S. S.November 5, 2026 at 11:03 PM

      Nah, we get literal whenever it's the more entertaining choice!
      As for when or why kid started to also mean a human child, my first guess is that both are prone to stubbornness and also headbutting things.

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  3. Seeing_INovember 1, 2026 at 6:24 AM

    Sweet & chewy mixed with crunchy & salty is one of my favorite combos, so I would probably really enjoy this.

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    1. S. S.November 5, 2026 at 11:03 PM

      If you're quick, you might nab the last of the candy corn from the clearanc shelf!

      Delete

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