The Table Between Worlds: The Real Story Behind Halloween
When you think of Halloween, you might think of candy, costumes and pumpkins- but before that, there was bread, wine and memory. The roots of Halloween reach across continents and centuries, connecting ancient rituals, sacred meals, and the way humans everywhere honor what’s seen and unseen. This Halloween, as the veil thins, you might find yourself cooking not just for the living, but for anyone who’s ever fed your soul.
The holiday, rooted in ancient origins, began with Samhain- a Gaelic festival marking the end of harvest and the start of winter’s darkness. Between October 31 and November 1, the early Irish believed that the veil between our world and the spiritual world was thin enough to blur the barriers between each. They build bonfires, set out offerings and wore disguises to protect themselves from wandering spirits. Festivities were heavy on an abundance of apples, nuts and grains. Barmbrack, a fruitcake with hidden charms to predict the year ahead, featured the harvest’s bounty as well.
Thousands of years later, when Christianity began to spread through Europe the Church, like they did for many other pagan holidays, folded Samhain in to its calendar. Pope Gregory III put All Saints Day, a.k.a, Ognissanti, on the map on November 1. November 2 was dedicated to All Saints Day. Both were centered on prayer, remembrance and connection with the dead. Eventually, the night before became known as All Hallow’s Eve- or Halloween. Today, Italians still bake Pane dei Morti (a personal favorite and a dessert that we serve at our restaurant with a short shot of vin santo) and Ossa di Morto, cookies shaped like bones, to remember the dead with sweetness.
Reverence for ancestors is a universal cultural value and even further back in time, across Africa and the diaspora, the veil between the living and the dead has always been understood and celebrated. Long before Halloween was carved into pumpkins, people left food at doorways and alters to welcome their ancestors home. It wasn’t superstition- it was hospitality. In West Africa, families offered yams, palm wine or water to the spirits of their lineage as a gesture of gratitude and continuity. Enslaved Africans carries these beliefs across the Atlantic, blending them with Christian observances like All Souls’ and harvest feasts. Out of that fusion came quiet rituals of remembrance: candles in windows, plates left out for the departed, the call- and- response of gospels songs sung to those unseen. If the Celts wore masks to confuse spirits, Black families cooked to invite them closer. But both traditions share the same truth- that this time of the year, boundaries soften between worlds. So when you roast yams (like we did for this week’s sweet potato gnocchi) or bake bread this week, you are part of a much older story one that began long before “trick or treat”, when feeding the spirits was the first and most sacred offering.
Here in Hawai’i, the season known as Makahiki, is a time of rest, renewal and gratitude and overlaps roughly with late October and early November. It was once a season to pause warfare and celebrate abundance and honor ancestors and gods through games, offerings and feasts. In the modern day, Halloween on Maui used to mean a large scale celebrations dubbed “The Mardi Gras of the Pacific”. Started in 1989 in Lahaina, more than thirty-thousand people a year flooded the iconic Front Street in all manner of costume and celebration. Yet long before the crowds filled these streets, Hawaiians already understood this time of year as one when unseen presences moved among the living. There is an old saying, “If you hear footsteps when the moon is full, it may be the Night Marchers passing through.” These spirits are believed to be ancient warriors making their way across the islands. Out of respect, Hawaiians traditionally averted their eyes, lay flat on the ground, or left offerings of food to show reverence and allow the spirits to pass undisturbed. This, too, speaks not about fear but awareness. The idea that the veil thins, the spirits walk, and that the living respond with humility and offering connects Hawaiian belief to the oldest roots of Samhain and All Hallows’ Eve. Here, on the islands, that understanding lives quietly beneath the festivities- in the hush between footsteps, in the glow of the candle, in the morsels of food left uneaten for a moment, as if to say, We see you, we remember you, we honor you.
When European immigrants brought Halloween to America, it merged with African, Indigenous and Christian practices. Trick-or-treating evolved from souling- children knocking on doors for small cakes in exchange for prayers for the dead. Pumpkins replaced turnips as lanterns. Candy and costumes followed. Yet beneath the noise and neon, the old purpose remains- to mark the turning of time, to feed the body and the memory.
Across every culture, food is how we remember. In Italy, baking for the dead keeps their names alive. In African-American kitchen, every shared meal honors the ancestors who endured. In Hawai’i, we offer something sweet to the night. Trusting that what we give returns. Intuiting that Halloween, stripped of its plastic, is still sacred. So light a candle. Pour the wine. Share the candy. Taste what connects you to every soul that ever sat at your table.
