This file is one of the Wolfstone archives of the Halloween mailing lists. You can find out more, and reach the entire collection here: http://www.pobox.com/~wolfstone/_r/HalloweenArchive.html This is a copy of Don Bertino's archive from http://www.calweb.com/~bertino/halloween.html on the subject of "Gruesome Food". Minor changes have been made, mostly removal of E-mail headers and signatures, but the germane content is unchanged. - - Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 08:13:06 -0600 From: ccmilli at orl.uswc.uswest.com (Catherine Million) Subject: Gruesome Food For our halloween parties, I've made little dinner rolls and put in enough green food coloring that they look totally molded. Gross looking but good. We also make hummus dip and use enough black beans beside the garbanzo beans that it looks either grey or brown grey and serve with chips. For the kids, we also make deviled eggs and make nasty faces on the yolk part out of sliced green olives for eyes and green or red pepper for mouth and eyebrows. - - Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 18:36:54 -0700 From: fishcat at hooked.net (Trystan L. Bass) Subject: Gruesome Food? Anyone have suggestions, instructions, and recipies for delicious-but-gruesome-looking Halloween party food? Specifically, unappetising appetisers for an adults' party. I've seen one recipie book on this subject, but it was oriented towards kids so none of the snacks & weird dinners were very adaptable to hors'devours. - - From: dbell at cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Gruesome Food? Date: Tue, 1 Aug 95 23:23:45 PDT Trystan (fishcat at hooked.net) asked: >Anyone have suggestions, instructions, and recipies for >delicious-but-gruesome-looking Halloween party food? Specifically, >unappetising appetisers for an adults' party. Well, this is exactly *gruesome*, but it certainly fits in as *unappetising*! You've probably seen it, but what the hell... Very simply, make little chocolate "logs", like Tootsie Rolls, and serve then in a foil-lined box, on a bed of sugar-dusted Grape Nuts. Make sure the family cat is clearly in evidence... - - Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 07:30:10 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donna J. Logan" Subject: Re: Gruesome Food? I remember a book I had as a kid (meant for kids) which had party suggestions for each of the holidays. For Halloween I remember it suggested serving the snacks in a darkened or completely dark room ....there was a bunch of stuff, but I only remember "eyeballs" (peeled grapes) and "tendons" (partially cooked spaghetti).... If I remember the rest of the "menu", I'll post it.... - - Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 05:58:08 -0700 From: milwiron at ix.netcom.com (D.D. ) Subject: Re: Gruesome Food? This is one we've done with good results- Cupcake rats Take a toy rubber or plastic mouse/rat and mold pieces of aluminum foil by pressing the foil over the top of the rat, forming a foil cup that has the shape of the rat on the inside, leave the bottom open and pull the toy rat out. Make a bunch of these aluminum rat cups. Use some additional foil to form legs so the molds sit open side up on a cookie sheet. Spray the inside of the foil rat molds with non-stick cooking spray and fill with chocolate cake batter following the instructions on the box. Leaving the molds on the cookie sheet for support, bake the rat cakes in the oven, again follow box instructions, you may find it helps to over bake them a bit. When finished baking, let cool and pull off the foil mold and trim the bottom of the cupcake rat with a knife so it sits flat. Use red cake icing in the little squeeze tubes to inject (from the bottom) the insides with a little gooey "blood", use licorice whips for a tail and red cake decorating beads for eyes. You usually will only get one rat per mold so make plenty of the foil molds, they're easy to do. You can make these into bats by adding wings made from Fruit Roll-Ups and leaving off the tail. - - Subject: Re: Gruesome Food? Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 09:17:20 -0700 (PDT) From: rjc at plaza.ds.adp.com (Rick Crowell) > Anyone have suggestions, instructions, and recipies for > delicious-but-gruesome-looking Halloween party food? Specifically, > unappetising appetisers for an adults' party. The Doctor Dreadful Food Lab and Drink Lab toy sets are pretty cool. I don't have the food lab but I picked up two drink lab sets. They come with a wonderful recipe book. I also got two Dr. Dreadful lunch labs from a Captain Crunch mail order promotion. The toy sets cost around $20. I picked up the two drink labs for $12 each because they were on clearance at one store, plus I had some $2 off coupons from those Captain Crunch boxes. The toy sets are made by Tyco. - - Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 15:32:36 -0700 From: Andrew at Evermore.com (Andrew Crawford) Subject: Re: Gruesome Food? The cupcake rats sound great. Thanks, Denny. I have a jello mold shaped like a human brain. It comes with a recipe for getting a realistically-colored jello brain. The molds are available through the "Things You Never Knew Existed" catalog (how I got on that mailing list, I have NO idea.) Unfortunately, my copies appear to have all been committed to the local recycling facility already. Otherwise, I would offer the address ... I was also considering some sort of a deep red ice, maybe cherry. If presented properly, I'm sure it could look gruesome ... - - Date: Thu, 3 Aug 1995 07:00:29 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donna J. Logan" Subject: Re: Gruesome Food? The Things You Never Knew Existed catalog is available from: Johnson Smith Co. P O Box 25500 Bradenton FL 34206 customer service: 813-747-5566 The brain gelatin mold is $10.98 (excluding s & h). "Complete with recipe for flesh-colored gelatin"....except REAL brains are ivory-colored, not flesh-colored..... - - Date: Fri, 4 Aug 1995 13:37:00 -0700 (PDT) From: "S. Herold" Subject: Re: Gruesome Food? Here's a few I picked up off of re.food.recipes last year. ___________________________________________________ >From foster at cedcampus.lan1.umanitoba.caFri Oct 21 09:48:22 1994 Date: 20 Oct 1994 22:01:16 -0400 From: Alice Foster Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes Subject: COLLECTION: Halloween recipes I loved all the previous Halloween recipes, though I'm not sure many of my friends would appreciate the Kitty Litter cake. I, on the other hand, think it's a stitch!! So, here are a few "calmer" recipes. These are from a '93 near halloween issue of the Winnipeg Free Press which got them from a book called "Creepy Cuisine" by Lucy Monroe. Strained Eyeballs 6 eggs, hardcooked, cooled, and peeled 6 oz whipped cream cheese 12 green olives stuffed with pimientos red food coloring or ketchup Half eggs widthwise. Remove yolks and fill the hole with cream cheese, smoothing surface as much as possible. Press an olive into each cream cheese eyeball, pimiento up, for an eerie green iris and red pupil. Dip a toothpick into ketchup and draw broken blood vessels in the cream cheese. Gnarled Witches Fingers 1 T veg oil 4 boneless chicken breasts 1 cup flour 1 egg, beaten 1 c bread crumbs Pitted black olives, halved lengthwise Shredded lettuce Grease cookie sheet with oil, set aside. Carefully cut chicken breasts partway to create five fingers (the uncut part will be the palm of the hand). Slice them a little crooked for effect. Dust in flour, dip in egg, coat in bread crumbs, broil 5 minutes each side til golden and cooked through. Trim the tips with the olive fingernails and serve on lettuce. Truth be known, I'm going to try shake'n'bake this year to ease my meal prep time on this busy, busy day of the year. Worms au Gratin Worms: 6-7 oz egg noodles, cooked with 8 oz spaghetti, broken into short pieces Toss with 2 T butter or marg 1 1/2 cups grated process cheese (though the kids prefer regular cheddar) Place in greased casserole. Dirt: 2 slices whole wheat bread, toasted, crumbled into tiny crumbs. 1 T butter or marg, melted 1/4 tsp salt Mix dirt ingredients together, sprinkle over worms. Place under broiler for 5 minutes. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!! -- Rec.food.recipes is moderated; only recipes and recipe requests are accepted for posting. Please read the "Posting Guidelines" article first. Submissions go to recipes at taronga.com; questions/comments go to tfdpress at acpub.duke.edu or arielle at taronga.com. Please allow several days for your submission to appear. - - Date: Wed Oct 26 08:46:11 1994 From: nd8748 at sunams.usma.army.mil (McKiernan Diane) Subject: Re: recipes and gags >How about some wonderful ideas on goofy, gagging and utterly disgusting >decorations and food for a party? > How abt a bowl of cooked spaghetti & olives -- blindfold people & tell them its a bowl of brains & eyes. - - Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 07:35:50 -0700 (PDT) From: Don Bertino Subject: Re: recipes and gags On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, McKiernan Diane wrote: > >How about some wonderful ideas on goofy, gagging and utterly disgusting > >decorations and food for a party? > Great--anyone have any? I have gone to a ethnic grocery store and have bought beef tongue, a cow heart, and intestines (yuk!). It only costed about $8 total, and once the kids "felt" it was real (AAAUUGGGG!!) - - From: dbell at cup.portal.com Subject: Re: recipes and gags Date: Thu, 27 Oct 94 10:13:36 PDT >On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, someone wrote: > >> >How about some wonderful ideas on goofy, gagging and utterly disgusting >> >decorations and food for a party? Well, one recipe I've seen for a truly disgusting decorative food was for "kitty logs". Basically, the idea was to form rough chocolate bars, like Tootsy Rolls, including additional bits of "roughage" - Grape Nuts, for example. Serve in a foil-lined tray, on a bed of Grape Nuts dusted with powdered sugar... - - Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 08:25:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Don Bertino Subject: Re: recipes and gags On Thu, 27 Oct 1994, Lisa L. Pardy wrote: > >On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, someone wrote: > > > >> >How about some wonderful ideas on goofy, gagging and utterly disgusting > >> >decorations and food for a party? > >> Great--anyone have any? > > And Don replied: > >I have gone to a ethnic grocery store and have bought beef tongue, a cow > >heart, and intestines (yuk!). It only costed about $8 total, and once the > >kids "felt" it was real (AAAUUGGGG!!) > > Goodness, Don, you _do_ aim for realism!! = ) I was going to suggest a > variation on a game we used to play when I was a kid; we'd all sit in a > circle and the lights would be turned off, and our host(ess) would begin > handing around bowls containing "body parts" with a running commentary. > "These are the condemned man's eyesssss" (peeled grapes) "These are the > condemned man's brainnnnnsss..." (cold cooked spaghetti) and so on... we'd > reach in and feel and be quite utterly grossed out. It was quite terrifying, > if I remember correctly : ) > > When I read your message, Don, I thought of playing this game by handing > around tongue, liver, intestines, etc. to a circle of kids in the dark. I > don't know whether to laugh or be appalled that I thought of it. Probably > would scar some of 'em for life : D However, *seeing* the assorted bits > would probably be sufficiently gruesome, I agree (did any of them *eat* any > of it??) Ha! Great idea. I can hear the kids screaming now. ;-) No, none ate them, heck none came within 10 feet once they found out it was real. I would like to ask everyone on this this, how many people will be hosting or working in a haunted house or have decorated the outside of the houses? What are your favorite outdoors decorations? - - Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 20:00:21 -0700 From: fishcat at hooked.net (Trystan L. Bass) Subject: Re: skeletons & misc Halloween ramblings > The process outlined by Scott to make skeletons out of aerosol >cans of insulating foam from the hardware store can also be used >to make large spiders. I must have missed the skeleton instructions Scott posted to the list (I've had some mail server problems). Could someone e-mail this info to me privately? Thanks a whole lot! 45 days until the Famous Dead Person's Ball 4 -- oh my god, I've got two costumes to make & a bunch of new props to finish!!! The panic has begun!!! BTW, thanks for the gruesome food ideas. I'm going to get the brain jello mold & put leek soup dip in it (mushy green brains! yum!) & surround it with crackers, plus I'm going to try the cupcake rats too. I've also got a bunch of weird cookie cutters to make both jello wigglers & decorated sugar cookies.... oh yeah, like I'm gonna have time for all this the week of the party (usually we farm out the catering to a friend, but we haven't found a sucker, er, kind volunteer yet -- another thing to panic about!). Must go mail invites now. If you'd like to see my web invite, check out http://www.hooked.net/users/fishcat/fdpb4.html. Has lots of movie & macabre links. - - Date: Fri, 29 Sep 95 13:04:33 EDT From: mrc at cadre.com (Mike Caron) Subject: Gruesome Food Summary I am hoping that I have added enough value to this message so that the moderator will not complain about this mail being a duplicate of previous messages. Most of this mail is from early August is this condensed list saves about 13 Kbytes from my UNIX system. Anyways, here are the recipes that were sent around on this list (at least the ones I received). They are sorted by course and have been edited so they take up a minimum of space, are easy to search through, and still credit the original author (or mailer). Each recipe starts with "RECIPE>>" and the list summary is listed. I organized the mail so I could print it out to show my wife some food ideas for a party we are planning. Thought others would enjoy the summary. RECIPE>> Appetizers -- Creepy Deviled Eggs RECIPE>> Appetizers -- Gross Hummus Dip RECIPE>> Appetizers -- Strained Eyeballs RECIPE>> Meals -- Gnarled Witches Fingers RECIPE>> Meals -- Moldy Dinner Rolls RECIPE>> Meals -- Worms au Gratin RECIPE>> Desserts -- Bleeding Heart Jello RECIPE>> Desserts -- Cupcake Rats RECIPE>> Desserts -- Kitty Turds on bed of Kitty Litter RECIPE>> Drinks -- Blood Red Ice RECIPE>> Cooking Accessories RECIPE>> COOKBOOK -- "How to Play with your Food" by Penn & Teller. RECIPE>> COOKBOOK -- "Creepy Cuisine" by Lucy Monroe. RECIPE>> Appetizers -- Creepy Deviled Eggs For the kids, we also make deviled eggs and make nasty faces on the yolk part out of sliced green olives for eyes and green or red pepper for mouth and eyebrows. Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 08:13:06 -0600 From: ccmilli at orl.uswc.uswest.com (Catherine Million) RECIPE>> Appetizers -- Gross Hummus Dip We make hummus dip and use enough black beans beside the garbanzo beans that it looks either grey or brown grey and serve with chips. Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 08:13:06 -0600 From: ccmilli at orl.uswc.uswest.com (Catherine Million) RECIPE>> Appetizers -- Strained Eyeballs 6 eggs, hardcooked, cooled, and peeled 6 oz whipped cream cheese 12 green olives stuffed with pimientos red food coloring or ketchup Half eggs widthwise. Remove yolks and fill the hole with cream cheese, smoothing surface as much as possible. Press an olive into each cream cheese eyeball, pimiento up, for an eerie green iris and red pupil. Dip a toothpick into ketchup and draw broken blood vessels in the cream cheese. Date: 20 Oct 1994 22:01:16 -0400 >From foster at cedcampus.lan1.umanitoba.caFri Oct 21 09:48:22 1994 These are from a '93 near halloween issue of the Winnipeg Free Press which got them from a book called "Creepy Cuisine" by Lucy Monroe. RECIPE>> Meals -- Gnarled Witches Fingers 1 T veg oil 4 boneless chicken breasts 1 cup flour 1 egg, beaten 1 c bread crumbs Pitted black olives, halved lengthwise Shredded lettuce Grease cookie sheet with oil, set aside. Carefully cut chicken breasts partway to create five fingers (the uncut part will be the palm of the hand). Slice them a little crooked for effect. Dust in flour, dip in egg, coat in bread crumbs, broil 5 minutes each side til golden and cooked through. Trim the tips with the olive fingernails and serve on lettuce. Truth be known, I'm going to try shake'n'bake this year to ease my meal prep time on this busy, busy day of the year. Date: 20 Oct 1994 22:01:16 -0400 From: Alice Foster RECIPE>> Meals -- Moldy Dinner Rolls For our halloween parties, I've made little dinner rolls and put in enough green food coloring that they look totally molded. Gross looking but good. Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 08:13:06 -0600 From: ccmilli at orl.uswc.uswest.com (Catherine Million) RECIPE>> Meals -- Worms au Gratin Worms: 6-7 oz egg noodles, cooked with 8 oz spaghetti, broken into short pieces Toss with 2 T butter or marg 1 1/2 cups grated process cheese (though the kids prefer regular cheddar) Place in greased casserole. Dirt: 2 slices whole wheat bread, toasted, crumbled into tiny crumbs. 1 T butter or marg, melted 1/4 tsp salt Mix dirt ingredients together, sprinkle over worms. Place under broiler for 5 minutes. From: Alice Foster Date: 20 Oct 1994 22:01:16 -0400 These are from a '93 near halloween issue of the Winnipeg Free Press which got them from a book called "Creepy Cuisine" by Lucy Monroe. RECIPE>> Desserts -- Bleeding Heart Jello The Preparation: The heart is made from red jello with a some evaporated milk added to make it opaque. The blood was something along the lines of honey or kyro syrup with red food coloring added... the 'blood' was placed in a small ziplock plastic bag and submerged in the jello. I guess you could use any mold for the jello... like I said he used a heart shape. Bleeding heart! The Presentation: A heart shaped mold sits innocently on a platter. When peirced with a sharp knife it oozes blood red sauce. The effect was so disgusting only I braved a taste. Not bad tasting. When you've gathered everyone around for the cutting, be sure to use a fairly sharp knife... it has to pierce the bag. Also, the best effect is when the center of the heart is pierced, then the knife is twisted. This oozes blood out of the "wound" and ... well... it just looks gross!! If you have a "hearty" crowd that wants to dig in, just remember to remove the bag! (I've heard of a halloween gag, but this is ridiculus!) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 1995 21:04:10 -0700 From: bobbyr at ix.netcom.com (Bobby Rosenberger) This is the "Bleeding Heart Jello" from Penn & Teller's book "How to Play with Your Food." RECIPE>> Desserts -- Cupcake Rats Take a toy rubber or plastic mouse/rat and mold pieces of aluminum foil by pressing the foil over the top of the rat, forming a foil cup that has the shape of the rat on the inside, leave the bottom open and pull the toy rat out. Make a bunch of these aluminum rat cups. Use some additional foil to form legs so the molds sit open side up on a cookie sheet. Spray the inside of the foil rat molds with non-stick cooking spray and fill with chocolate cake batter following the instructions on the box. Leaving the molds on the cookie sheet for support, bake the rat cakes in the oven, again follow box instructions, you may find it helps to over bake them a bit. When finished baking, let cool and pull off the foil mold and trim the bottom of the cupcake rat with a knife so it sits flat. Use red cake icing in the little squeeze tubes to inject (from the bottom) the insides with a little gooey "blood", use licorice whips for a tail and red cake decorating beads for eyes. You usually will only get one rat per mold so make plenty of the foil molds, they're easy to do. You can make these into bats by adding wings made from Fruit Roll-Ups and leaving off the tail. Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 05:58:08 -0700 From: milwiron at ix.netcom.com (D.D. ) RECIPE>> Desserts -- Kitty Turds on bed of Kitty Litter Very simply, make little chocolate "logs", like Tootsie Rolls, and serve then in a foil-lined box, on a bed of sugar-dusted Grape Nuts. Make sure the family cat is clearly in evidence... From: dbell at cup.portal.com Date: Tue, 1 Aug 95 23:23:45 PDT RECIPE>> Drinks -- Blood Red Ice I was also considering some sort of a deep red ice, maybe cherry. If presented properly, I'm sure it could look gruesome ... Date: ?? From: Andrea at Evermore.com RECIPE>> Cooking Accessories The Doctor Dreadful Food Lab and Drink Lab toy sets are pretty cool. I don't have the food lab but I picked up two drink lab sets. They come with a wonderful recipe book. I also got two Dr. Dreadful lunch labs from a Captain Crunch mail order promotion. The toy sets cost around $20. I picked up the two drink labs for $12 each because they were on clearance at one store, plus I had some $2 off coupons from those Captain Crunch boxes. The toy sets are made by Tyco. Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 09:17:20 -0700 (PDT) From: rjc at plaza.ds.adp.com (Rick Crowell) RECIPE>> Cooking Accessories The Things You Never Knew Existed catalog is available from: Johnson Smith Co. P O Box 25500 Bradenton FL 34206 customer service: 813-747-5566 The brain gelatin mold is $10.98 (excluding s & h). "Complete with recipe for flesh-colored gelatin"....except REAL brains are ivory-colored, not flesh-colored..... Date: Thu, 3 Aug 1995 07:00:29 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donna J. Logan" RECIPE>> COOKBOOK -- "How to Play with your Food" by Penn & Teller. RECIPE>> COOKBOOK -- "Creepy Cuisine" by Lucy Monroe. - - Date: Mon, 7 Aug 1995 21:04:10 -0700 From: bobbyr at ix.netcom.com (Bobby Rosenberger) Subject: Re: Gruesome Food? Here's my all-time favorite! Last year at my halloween party my girlfriends brother brought this over and it went over HUGE! I've never seen a reaction like this before... Anyway, here's the idea... (I don't have the exact recipe so you'll have to wing some of this... fortunatly it's pretty simple!!) The Effect: A heart shaped mold sits innocently on a platter. When peirced with a sharp knife it oozes blood red sauce. The effect was so disgusting only I braved a taste. Not bad tasting. The Preparation: The heart is made from red jello with a some evaporated milk added to make it opaque. The blood was something along the lines of honey or kyro syrup with red food coloring added... the 'blood' was placed in a small ziplock plastic bag and submerged in the jello. I guess you could use any mold for the jello... like I said he used a heart shape. Bleeding heart! The Presentation: When you've gathered everyone around for the cutting, be sure to use a fairly sharp knife... it has to pierce the bag. Also, the best effect is when the center of the heart is pierced, then the knife is twisted. This oozes blood out of the "wound" and ... well... it just looks gross!! If you have a "hearty" crowd that wants to dig in, just remember to remove the bag! (I've heard of a halloween gag, but this is ridiculus!) - - Date: Tue, 8 Aug 95 09:03:36 EDT From: wurst at eng2.uconn.edu (Karl R. Wurst) Subject: Gruesome Food? bobbyr at ix.netcom.com (Bobby Rosenberger) said: >The Effect: > >A heart shaped mold sits innocently on a platter. When peirced with a >sharp knife it oozes blood red sauce. The effect was so disgusting only >I braved a taste. Not bad tasting. Snip...Snip > >Bobby R. > >P.S. I'll try to get the exact recipe if I can... hmmm... I wonder if >he still has it! > This is the "Bleeding Heart Jello" from Penn & Teller's book "How to Play with Your Food." A friend of mine was their "Jello Consultant" for the gag. You should be able to find the book in most large book stores, or have them order it for you. - - Date: Thu, 28 Sep 95 18:16:57 PDT From: lfarr at santa.stratacom.com (Lisa Farr) Subject: Halloween Party Ideas I have a warped sense of humor, and have been known to channel Martha Stewart. My birthday's the day before Halloween, so it's usually a big hoo-ha. Some of my favorites: Brain Dip 1 whole cauliflower 1 tub Trader Joe Spinach and Water Chestnut dip radishes assorted raw vegetables, crackers for dipping. Cut florets from the top of the cauliflower until you have a cauliflower 'bowl'. Remove greens from bottom. Cut stems from radishes, leave the root, remove skin. Using toothpicks and food coloring, draw an eyeball on the flat part of the radish (where the top was). The root will look like the optic nerve. Fill cauliflower with dip, garnish with radish 'eyes', serve with veggies and crackers. Spider Bread (stolen from Sunset) Bread dough or package of pre-made rolls. (optional) poppy seeds, almond slivers (hard core optional) pesto or cheese/sausage filling Seperate dough into individual rolls. Using floured scissors, cut each roll in two. Cut one part into four longish strips (for legs) and lay them across the other part, pinching in the center to get the ends to all stick out the sides. Bake as directed. You can use the poppy seeds for eyes and the almond slivers for fangs. When I made them I filled the body part with pesto, and sausage and cheese. Anything you'd put in a calzone will work, but be careful it's not too runny 'cause it'll leak out! - -