In another tradition, at midnight on Halloween, a girl would stand in front of a mirror and brush her hair three times while eating an apple. The image of her future husband was supposed to appear in the mirror over her shoulder. Once she saw his face, she was supposed to peel an apple in a single strip. She would the toss the peel over her left shoulder using her right hand. The peel would form the first initial of his name.

The story of the jack-o'-lantern's origin has many versions, but it revolves around a rogue Irishman who tricked the devil and thus was denied entrance into hell when he died. Since he was too sinful for heaven, he was doomed to wander in darkness. He begged for something to light the way, and the devil threw him a live coal from the fires of hell, which Jack put in a turnip he was eating.

"It's a tale about being good and what will happen if you're not," Gorrell said.

To keep Jack and other ghosts and fairies from visiting them, people would carve out turnips, rutabagas, gourds, beets and potatoes and place lights in them. The tradition changed in the 1800s when waves of immigrants came to America and discovered pumpkins were larger and easier to carve, said Gorrell.

When the term jack-o'-lantern first appeared in print in 1750, it referred to a night watchman, or a man carrying a lantern, according to the Web site, jackolantern.com.

"When I was growing up, my mom always made dinner-in-a-pumpkin," said Gorrell, referring to a casserole baked in a pumpkin shell. "I'm sure that today I'd like it, but back then we weren't happy that we had to eat it before we could go out trick-or-treating. My mom always said we had to get our nutrition 'before you get all of your sugar.' "

Instead, Gorrell suggests serving colcannon, a mashed potato concoction that's the main dish of an All Hallows Eve supper. Traditionally, a carefully wrapped gold ring, sixpence, thimble or button were put into the mixture. To those who found them while eating, the ring denoted romance; the sixpence, wealth; the thimble, a spinster; and the button, a bachelor.

"If you put these in, warn people because we don't want to break any teeth," warned Gorrell.

While colcannon is often made with cooked kale, it's sometimes made with cabbage.

---

CARAMEL APPLES

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Place in refrigerator to cool before making caramel. Place sticks in 12 medium tart apples and keep in the refrigerator until ready to dip. (The cooled pan will help caramel set.) Or, if you want to make caramels (without any apples), spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray.

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup light corn syrup

1/2 cup butter