Hair salad with saliva dressing, strained eyeballs and mashed potato ghosts are among the buffet dishes embraced by those who like pulling out all the stops when entertaining for Halloween. Such recipes, collected from Web sites and aficionados of the pagan holiday, take the Halloween theme a few steps beyond the culinary norm with their sometimes ghoulish yet delightfully edible presentations.

Dominic Sanchez of the College Area calls himself “the consummate gay party host” at holidays and special occasions like Halloween. A black cauldron-like pot he purchased a few years ago at a flea market serves as his annual centerpiece for dispensing hot cider. Surrounding it are things like sirloin beef stew contained in a large, hollowed pumpkin, which he says imparts a rustic flavor to meals if you rinse the inside of the squash with boiling water after scooping out the pulp and seeds.

“I cook the stew separately on the stove and then add it into the pumpkin tureen,” he says. “It looks very autumny and keeps the food warm for a long time.”

His “spider web platter” is an arrangement of boiled purple potatoes piled in the center of a large serving dish with a web design of homemade spicy aioli shooting out from it in all directions. The web is achieved by using a plastic squeeze bottle. And the “hairballs” he makes originate from a few cups of alfalfa sprouts and shredded carrots held together by mashed avocado. Bottled Italian dressing is the “saliva.”

The culinary component to Halloween is taken more seriously, however, by Mira Mesa resident Pat McQuillon, a high priestess in her Wiccan circle and a Reiki master and chakra instructor at the California Institute of Open Studies in Mission Valley. Practicing Wiccans refer to Halloween as Samhain to honor those who have transcended the physical plane.

“It is a time that’s believed the veil between the living and the dead is very thin,” she notes. “And in the old tradition you had to harvest everything and bring in the cattle by the end of October or it was believed the food would turn poisonous.”

Thus she has participated in what’s known as “dumb suppers,” where meals from early autumn harvests are prepared and the host sets an extra plate at the table for the dead and actually piles food onto it. At the last dumb supper she attended with a small group of modern-day pagans, the menu adhered mostly to Celtic tradition, consisting of meat and potatoes, Scotch broth soup and guacamole as the contemporary element.

In Ireland, food was once used at Halloween also for divination, to peer into the future or conjure up luck. Young, unmarried women, for example, would peel the skin of an apple and let the remnants fall to the floor to see what letter of the alphabet the skins formed. “That letter would signify the first initial of your future husband,” says McQuillon. Other times, a ring was baked into a traditional Irish fruitcake called barnbrack. Whoever got the jewelry piece in their slice was bestowed good luck for the new year.

Whether you’re a practicing Wiccan or a playful follower of Halloween camp, the few recipes below will help stir the appetites and spirits of your party guests.

6 hardboiled eggs

6 ounces whipped cream cheese

7 ounces green olives with pimientos

Red food coloring

Remove yolks from the eggs, discard, and fill the holes with cream cheese. Press an olive into each cream cheese “eyeball” with pimiento facing up for an eerie green iris and startling red pupil! For a final touch, dip the tip of a toothpick in red food coloring and draw broken blood vessels in the cream cheese. Serves six. (www.halloweenishere.com)

4 small round pumpernickel rolls

1/2 cup tuna salad

36 straight pretzel sticks

Squeeze yellow mustard

Slice the rolls in half. Spread the bottom half of each roll with two tablespoons of the tuna salad. Add eight pretzel sticks to each sandwich to form the spider legs (four on each side sticking out) and cap with the top half of the roll. Break the last four pretzels in half and poke two halves, broken side down, into each roll to make the spider eyes. Squeeze some mustard around each “eye.” Serve immediately. Serves four. (Perfect Party Entertaining)

12 navel oranges

12 cinnamon sticks

1/2 gallon dark chocolate ice cream

Cut off tops of oranges. Gently hollow out pulp (reserve for another use), leaving a thick shell. Hollow out pulp from the tops also. Cut jack o’ lantern faces into each orange. Pack chocolate ice cream into shells and avoid letting ice cream come out of holes. Cut a hole into the crowns of each orange top. Set tops back on over the ice cream and insert cinnamon stick stems through each hole. Place in freezer for at least three hours or until serving time. Serves 12. (www.halloweenishere.com)