Ghoulish Halloween food

Halloween is a great time to eat some really wacky food. At my friend P’s fancy dress party at the weekend, the food did a bit of dressing up too.

R made a delicious pair of carrot cakes and decorated them with an assortment of paper parasols, a vintage toy car, a Spanish flamenco doll and various plastic figures (the cake is hiding underneath, spread with a delicious brown sugar and orange frosting):

Her second sliced cake was adorned with pictures of Anne Widdecombe, plus Withnail and I. And why not? Remember the scene in the film where Withnail and I demand ‘the finest wines and cakes known to humanity’?

J and M made this absolutely sensational loaf of beetle bread, where black olives nestling in the dough pretended to be cockroaches. Insects never tasted so delicious!

My contribution to the party food – the ever-tasteful retro cheese and pineapple hedgehog (plus a plate of ‘dead man fingers’ sausages and a bowl of ketchup blood, which sadly I was too drunk to photograph):

The local supermarket had just one pumpkin left, so I had to improvise with a honeydew melon for the lantern on the right:

I almost prefer the honeydew melon lantern – happy smiling ghoul!

Guests really went to town on their outfits, too. R dressed as a Victorian wolf-woman, P was a ghoulish pagan dandy, S was a pale-skinned vampire, I met a young Ziggy Stardust, my husband was a serial murderer complete in blood-soaked body bag, and I dressed as a 1980’s aerobics instructor knifed to death in the New York subway. A number of people wore very disturbing masks. And actor Willem Dafoe made a surprise appearance, in the form of an extraordinary art installation. All as it should be! I have now almost got the fake blood stains out of my skin and hair…thanks P for an unforgettable night!