Ok, maybe a little gross, but a really eye catching food for all those Halloween enthusiasts.

In no way is there any kind of justification or morality for this kind of dish!  I only know that a cold cut bedecked skull upon a platter into the midst of a crowd of Halloween revelers chanting Meat Head. Meat Head. MEAT! HEAD! is to know what it is to touch the face of an angel.

Here’s how to make your own.

Supplies
– 1 plastic skull
– 1 box of red or green gelatin
– Cream cheese (optional)
– Food coloring (optional)
– Plastic wrap
– 1-2 cookie sheets
– 1 1/2 pounds thinly-sliced cold cuts
– 1 hard boiled egg
– Olives or cocktail onions
– Toothpicks

1. Wash a plastic skull. If it isn’t labeled as food safe, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Place this on the most decorative platter you possess.

2. Prepare a batch of gelatin, using HALF the amount of water suggested. Pour this onto a plastic wrap-lined cookie sheet to a depth of 1/4 inch, chill and let it congeal. Use a red-colored flavor for a gory look, or green if you should care to add an alien undertone to the festivities.

3. When the gelatin has set to a rubbery consistency, slice it into swatches and mold these around the skull. It may not be possible to thoroughly cover the entire head. You may also opt to augment coverage with cream cheese, stirred with the food coloring of your choice.

4. Layer the entire surface with thin slices of cold cuts. Deli ham can provide a smooth, only mildly-revolting skin, but salami and mortadella evoke a delightful soupçon of postmortem putrefaction.

5. Halve a hard boiled egg, then halve the yolk and press sides into the eye sockets. Pimento-stuffed olives or pickled cocktail onions make delightfully disturbing pupils. If you should care to amp the hue with beet juice or red food coloring, who in the world would stop you?

6. Augment the presentation by decking the platter with cooked, sauced spaghetti, meat scraps, pimento-topped hummus – however the spirit moves you.

7. Lower the lights, clear a space on the buffet table, and select thematically appropriate music for your ascension into Halloween host immortality as you introduce Meat Head to his adoring new fans.

Serve with forks and crackers. Most guests by then are whipped into a state of meat-adoring ecstasy and will simply lunge at Meat Head with their fingers, clawing off his flesh and stuffing it into their gaping maws, but you yourself may wish to maintain a sense of decorum. You’re not a savage, after all.