What is sure is that Halloween
is a celebration that inspires fear and it is characterized by a deep sense of
mystery that generates fear. However children love this party, perhaps it is
due to its fascinations. It is an occasion to exorcize personal fears and laugh
at them.
If we want to tell our
children the story of this celebration, we can narrate that in bygone days in a
country called Ireland the ancient people of Celts believed that on the night
of the 31st of October spirits wandered undisturbed through the
Earth and dressing up monstrous masks was the only way to push them away, and
they left sweets outside the door to appease them.
It’s plenty of legends and curiosities related to Halloween that we can
tell children; for example the Jack ‘o Lantern legend tells that the protagonist,
after being expelled from hell, started wandering through the world with a
turnip with a burning brand into that he used as a lantern. On this basis, the
first representations of Jack were made
using turnips, beets and potatoes.
Turnips light also had the
task to drive bad spirits out and they were put at the entrance of houses. How did we pass from turnip
to pumpkins? It is just a practical reason: when the first British people
reached America, they found giant pumpkins and they replaced turnips with
pumpkins.
Besides telling our little children stories and
legends about this celebration we can also prepare with them this simple and
delicious “monstrous” sweets.
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Ingredients for 16
little spiders
12.3 oz cereal cookies
5.3 oz dark chocolate
2 tbs cocoa
1 tbs acacia honey
2 Nergi packets
3 liquorice wheels
32 little meringues
Chocolate sprinkles q.s.
Sugar butterflies
Mix
until the mixture becomes homogeneous and quite thick, if it is necessary, add
some cookies
Put
the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes
In the meantime prepare
the paws: unroll the liquorice wheels, split in half the liquorice thread and
cut 128 little pieces (almost 4 cm).
Once the time has
expired take the dough, roll one ball, crush a little bit on one side in order
to shape the head, then with a stick make 4 holes on each side of the little
spider, put some liquorice pieces in each hole.
Then apply the sprinkles,
put two little meringues to form the eyes with a drop of chocolate in the
centre to draw the pupils. Finally use the sugar butterfly to create the little
tongue and let it cool.
