Today, when we hear the word Halloween, we likely think of jack-o'-lanterns, costumes, ghosts, witches, and, of course, plenty of candy.
But hundreds of years ago, people were preoccupied with quite different things on the last evening of October.
For example, a very important question:
Who will be my true love?
And for the answer, they often didn't use crystal balls or tarot cards.
But rather, an apple. 🍎
For centuries, the apple has been associated with autumn festivals, divination, and later, Halloween itself. Over time, this simple fruit gave rise to one of the most spectacular autumn treats: the Halloween candy apple, coated in shiny sugar glaze or caramel.
Why did the apple become one of the symbols of Halloween?
It is, of course, no coincidence that the apple took center stage in autumn festivals.
During the harvest season in Europe, the apple was one of the most important and easily accessible fruits. According to a widely known explanation, the apple-related customs associated with the Roman festival of Pomona, the goddess of fruit and fruit trees, may have blended over time with Celtic autumn traditions. While the exact historical path of this connection cannot be proven in every detail, the apple played a role in various autumn games and fortune-telling rituals centuries before the formation of modern Halloween.
And some of these were much more romantic than we might think.
Could an apple peel reveal your future husband?
Imagine an old-fashioned Halloween gathering.
There are no plastic spiders, LED jack-o'-lanterns, or bagged gummy candies. Young people gather in a room, candles are lit, and walnuts, hazelnuts, and apples are lined up on the table.
According to the game, a young woman had to peel an apple so that the skin remained in one long, continuous strip.
Then, she would toss the apple peel over her shoulder.
The shape the peel took on the ground would then be carefully examined.
According to legend, the apple peel formed a letter.
And this letter was the initial of her future husband's name.
Apple-peeling for love divination is no modern internet legend: it can be found in old collections of Halloween games. For example, a game book preserved in the U.S. Library of Congress specifically suggested for Halloween that apples be peeled in one long strip, which was then tossed over the shoulder to reveal the initial of one’s "destined one."
Not Tinder.
Not a dating app.
A piece of apple peel.
Bobbing for apples wasn't just a children's game either
In the bobbing for apples we know today, apples are placed in a large bowl or tub of water, and players must retrieve one using only their mouths, without using their hands.
Today, it mostly seems like a funny Halloween party game.
In the past, however, it carried a romantic meaning as well.
According to some traditions, the young person who managed to retrieve or bite an apple first would soon get married. In other versions, specific apples represented particular suitors. According to the Library of Congress, various versions of apple bobbing were linked to courtship and predicting future relationships.
In other words, the old Halloween could, in some respects, have been a particularly strange dating night.
But when did sugar get on the apple?
While romantic divination is older, the candy apple known today—covered in a hard sugar glaze—is a much more modern invention.
According to the popular story, William W. Kolb, a candy maker from New Jersey, was experimenting with red cinnamon sugar glaze around 1908. He dipped apples into the bright red coating and displayed them in his shop window.
Originally, he wanted to showcase his candy.
However, customers were more interested in the apples themselves.
The idea quickly became popular, and sugar-glazed apples became increasingly associated with autumn fairs and Halloween during the first half of the 20th century.
Later, the softer, stickier caramel apple also appeared, and the treat that is now almost impossible to separate from the American autumn was born.
The treat that sparked another Halloween legend
The story of the candy apple has a much darker chapter as well.
Starting in the 1960s and 1970s in America, stories began to spread with increasing frequency about strangers hiding razor blades in Halloween apples or putting poison in children's candy.
The stories became so widespread that many parents stopped allowing their children to eat homemade Halloween treats.
However, the story of the "stranger handing out apples with razor blades" largely became an urban legend and was not as regularly documented a phenomenon as the fears of the time might have suggested. According to the Smithsonian's history of candy, this fear also contributed to factory-packaged sweets increasingly replacing homemade cookies, popcorn balls, and apples in trick-or-treat baskets starting in the 1970s.
Thus, the same apple that was once used to predict a future lover became the star of a very different Halloween legend centuries later.
Love, divination, sugar, and Halloween
Perhaps that is why the story of the Halloween caramel apple is so interesting.
Multiple eras converge in a single treat.
It contains the autumn apple harvest.
Old love divination.
Apple bobbing.
The apple peel tossed over the shoulder.
The red sugar glaze of early 20th-century American candy shops.
And finally, the modern Halloween, when sweets appear once again alongside witches, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns.
Today, few people likely toss apple peels over their shoulders to find out the name of their future love.
But perhaps the beauty of Halloween is that for one night, you can believe in such stories again.
Who knows?
Maybe that strange apple peel really did form the letter D… 🎃🍎
Halloween without candy? Out of the question!
Halloween traditions have changed a lot over the centuries, but one thing is for sure: sweets have become an inseparable part of Halloween today. In the United States, the link between trick-or-treat culture and packaged candy strengthened mainly in the mid-20th century.
And if you don't want to try to divine love from apple peels this year, we have an easier plan. 😄
Among cukigumi.hu's Halloween sweets, vampire teeth, skulls, brains, monsters, sour gummy candies, and other spooky treats await you.
🎃 Shop in time, because Halloween stocks are limited, and once they run out, there's no guarantee we'll get more!
