Vintage Chicago Tribune: Retro recipes for Halloween from Mary Meade’s archives

This is the most wonderful time of the year, Chicago.

Halloween is my favorite of all the holidays. I love the decorations, the spooky movies, the candy my kiddo brings home after trick-or-treating and the opportunity to dress up and pretend to be something I’m not.

That masquerade extends to this week’s newsletter. I am not a food stylist or a baker. But I do enjoy exploring the Tribune’s archives in search of some delicious — or frightening — decades-old recipes to share. It’s a delightful attempt to get out of my comfort zone and create something that’s a little bit retro while also learning a new skill. I’m prone to pick a sweet or savory Jell-O mold. Remember the two-toned corned beef salad recipe from 1963?

I’ve been stumped several times and that’s when I’ve asked my husband Pat — who does the majority of the cooking in our family — for help.

In the past year I’ve unearthed recipes for Christmas, Easter and Fourth of July. Part of the fun is coming up with creative ways to display the finished product — just as the Tribune’s phantom food editor Mary Meade did. Recipes published in the Tribune were often attributed to the fictional culinary expert. Mary Meade was the pen name used by five food editors of the newspaper from 1930 to 1974.

[ Christopher Borrelli: The rise and fall of Halloween trick-or-treating ]

For our Halloween recipe photo session, award-winning Tribune photographer E. Jason Wambsgans looked to the ground for inspiration.

“We’re gonna need a bucket of dirt,” he told me.

Combining the filth with a fog machine, a few additional props and lighting by Peter Tsai gave us some hauntingly simple but boo-tiful photographs. And, how did each item taste? Devilishly good.

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Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

— Kori Rumore, visual reporter

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Vintage Chicago Tribune

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The Vintage Tribune newsletter is a deep dive into the Chicago Tribune’s archives featuring photos and stories about the people, places and events that shape the city’s past, present and future.

“Cider and doughnuts are standby Halloween refreshments, but if you want to be a little different this year try goblin salads, apple sauce cake and punch,” Meade wrote in 1938. Get the recipe here.

“It might be fun to make a dessert in Halloween colors of black and orange for the family. An orange chiffon pie in a chocolate wafer crust should please all the ghosts and witches at your dinner table,” Meade wrote in 1955. Get the recipe here.

“If you haven’t met them before, do let me present these clever little buns. They’d be such delightful Halloween treats for deserving youngsters,” Meade wrote in 1959. Get the recipe here.

“As Halloween or pre-Halloween goodies, many youngsters will like the following jack-o-lantern cooky sandwiches even better. I don’t suggest them for ‘trick or treat’ night, however. If as many spooks and goblins call on you as ring our doorbell, it would be impossible to bake enough of these goodies,” Meade wrote in 1960. Get the recipe here.

“One of the most imaginative and Christmasy-looking hot dishes around these days is the creation of California home economists, an avocado poinsettia pie. The green of avocado, the red of pimento are the colors of Christmas. Cheese, eggs, celery soup and frozen peas, and a base of refrigerator biscuits complete the savory pie,” Meade wrote in 1964. Get the recipe here.

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