Mincemeat, no I mean real mincemeat
December 20, 2015 6:34 PM   Subscribe

Around Christmas weird vestigial foods reappear. Fruitcake, eggnog, and weirdest and in America all but forgotten: mincemeat pie. The modern take is a sort of sugary glop made by grinding dried fruit, leaving even the homemade stuff mostly miserable and pointless. But it wasn't always like that way as the late (previously) Cliff Doerksen noted.

Sure, you can find recipes online for "real" mincemeat, and they'll tell you to make a bland sugary glop.

The real thing starts with meat, beef or venison, and builds on that with plenty of dried (but not ground up) fruit, and more suet than you really want to think about.

So go forth, make yourself some REAL mincemeat, you can find recipes in the first link, pop it in your favorite pie crust, and rediscover why Americans once considered mincemeat to be the finest pie around. I think it still is.

If you'd rather not dig, my recipe, modified from several online, follows:

4 pounds of lean beef roast (rump roast works well and is relatively cheap)
1.5 pounds of suet ground, you'll think it is far too much but it isn't.
3 pounds granny smith apples pealed, cored, and diced
1 pound of golden raisins
10 oz of currants
10 oz of dried cranberries
1 gallon of apple cider boiled down to a thick syrup
2 tablespoons ground cloves
2 tablespoons ground allspice
3 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon nutmeg
the juice of two limes
1 pint of cheap brandy
2 cups dark brown sugar

Go to your nearest butcher and see about getting ground suet, sometimes you'll have to explain what suet is (that hard white fat from around the loins and kidneys). As long as they trim their own meat they'll be able to get some, in the USA you'll probably have to ask for it, then come back the next day.

Roast the beef until it is grey all the way through (I can't bring myself to boil a beef roast), allow to cool and then mince your meat.

While the beef is roasting put the cider in a big pot and boil it until it is only 10% or 20% of its former volume, then allow to cool.

Once the boiled cider is cooled and the meat minced mix all the ingredients together in a huge (or pot) and allow to sit in the fridge for at least a day to blend.

To make a pie, fill your pie crust with mincemeat, top, and bake at 425 for 45 to 50 minutes. Allow to cool before slicing.

The flavor is antique and not like anything found today, spiced to an amazing degree and filled with smooth fat from the suet. Delicious hot, excellent cold, wonderful reheated.
posted by sotonohito (85 comments total) 69 users marked this as a favorite
 
How many Pies does your recipe make?
posted by KingEdRa at 6:42 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


History of the Whipple Co., which made mincemeat in Natick, Mass., until 2003.
posted by adamg at 6:47 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]


KingEdRa, about five or six. Unfortunately I don't know a smaller mincemeat recipe, so experimenting takes a commitment.
posted by sotonohito at 6:53 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Most remarkably, mince pie achieved and maintained its hegemony despite the fact that everyone—including those who loved it—agreed that it reliably caused indigestion, provoked nightmares, and commonly afflicted the overindulgent with disordered thinking, hallucinations, and sometimes death.

So it's the 19th century version of Skyline Chili?

Except healthier.
posted by delfin at 6:53 PM on December 20, 2015 [9 favorites]


Don't you even forget figgy pudding.
posted by selfnoise at 6:55 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Alternatively, just make mincemeat outta your enemies.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:02 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Other things to do with mincemeat
(remember, last year's mince meat is much better than this year's, and all you have to do is open it up every six months and give it a flick of brandy).
posted by dilaudid at 7:05 PM on December 20, 2015 [5 favorites]


Except for people who stuff their birdfeeders with it in wintertime
Literally the only reason I know what suet is.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:11 PM on December 20, 2015 [6 favorites]


Oregon Suet Block as featured on Dirty Jobs. Packed with beef kidney and dehydrated insects.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:22 PM on December 20, 2015


I actually like Nonesuch….
posted by ob1quixote at 7:26 PM on December 20, 2015


How many Pies does your recipe make?

African or European?

Ideally I should have next poured half a quart of brandy on the Chronicle batch and then packed it in a stone crock to "ripen and blend" in a cool, dry place for three weeks

Crikey.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 7:27 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


I feel deeply compelled to make this.
posted by Makwa at 7:50 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]


1.5 pounds of suet ground, you'll think it is far too much but it isn't.

I thought the recipe was for one pie only, for which this would be an impressive amount of fat.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:55 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


The perfect dish to serve just before enduring a long winter siege.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:56 PM on December 20, 2015 [5 favorites]


Dip, heh yeah. I should have noted that my recipe makes enough filling for many pies. It'd be nice if I could find a good recipe for just a single pie, but the quantities just keep getting kind of weird when I try.
posted by sotonohito at 7:59 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's kind of weird to feed suet to birds?
posted by unknowncommand at 8:03 PM on December 20, 2015


I loved mince meat pie when I was a lad in the midwest. I spent many years trying to find and eat some after I grew up and moved to the big city, never could. Most people didn't even know what I was talking about. But now I'm a vegetarian, my search has ended.
posted by charlesminus at 8:04 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


My dad makes his own mincemeat using suet, candied peel, raisins, currants, a spice mixture of his own devising, rum, and brandy.


It is sublime.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:05 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's kind of weird to feed suet to birds?

I've always kept a suet feeder for birds, especially in winter. They love it. It's a block of suet embedded with seeds and stuff.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:06 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]


Can someone who knows about cooking tell me why you can't just quarter the recipe for one pie?
posted by tzikeh at 8:11 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


I love mince pie (even the fruit-based kind, which is edible if you add lots of brandy). The one time I made the real thing, I had a Heck of a time finding suet, though.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:24 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Tzikeh, you should be able to divide the recipe (though it's 5-6, not four). Just know you're not going to be able to find a rump roast that small.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:28 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's kind of weird to feed suet to birds?

Not really.

The centuries old grudge match between South Island sheep farmers and bloodthirsty mountain parrots could soon be over.

Researchers say early trials of a nauseating spray-on bird repellent, applied to high-country sheep to dissuade kea from tearing holes in their guts, have been highly promising, and they are seeking partners for further research.

Tamsin Orr-Walker, co-founder of the Kea Conservation Trust, said from the late 1800s high-country sheep farmers waged war with kea, because the inquisitive parrots found that by pecking holes near a sheep's kidneys they could tuck into the tasty fat beneath.

posted by sebastienbailard at 9:32 PM on December 20, 2015 [9 favorites]


Sorry, but my Christmas meat pie niche is occupied by Tourtière.
posted by quaking fajita at 9:57 PM on December 20, 2015 [13 favorites]


As a kid I always saw references to mincemeat pies in books and assumed it was a savory meat dish. It was with great disappointment that I first encountered mincemeat in my teens and discovered it to be a sugary dessert food of poor account. This version seems like a blend of the two, and I can't figure out if that means it would be great or horrible.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:05 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]


I haven't had mincemeat since I was a tiny tot, but I remember hating it. The above recipe sounds good, like I'd be willing to revisit mincemeat if it had actual meat in it, but whatever I had as a wee one was raisins, gristle, and sugar, and some other unidentified stuff. It was category failure in a pie crust.
It left me with the impression that mincemeat was made from slaughterhouse floor sweepings, with like caterpillars and sawdust and rubberbands in it, and not fit for human consumption.
Of course, I have similar texture issues with canned fruit cocktail.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 10:12 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]


Now I'm wondering if my mom's mincemeat tarts have suet. In them, and how many pounds if suet I have consumed over the years in these delicious tarts.
posted by chapps at 10:16 PM on December 20, 2015


My mom's Tourtière recipe (we just call it Meat Pie).

2 lbs ground pork
1 lb ground beef
1 tbsp salt
3/4 tsp pepper
1 onion
3 stalks of celery
------
3 large potatoes

Place first set of ingredients in large pot. Cover with water. Boil for at least two hours. Finish by boiling off water until mixture is dryish. Separately, boil the potatoes. Drain when meat is ready. Mash potatoes with meat. Let cool. Put in crusts. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then at 350 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes. Makes 3 scant nine-inch pies. Serves 6 - 12.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:53 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]


My in-laws still make a big deal about one aunt's pies every Christmas. They're pretty good, for fruity mince pies. They are still fairly big in some New Zealand circles, I guess. This year my daughter wants them which means we literally have to import them from the UK. I'm not hopeful.
posted by tracicle at 12:38 AM on December 21, 2015


I unashamedly love fruit mince pies, but I would definitely try a slice of the fatty meat ur-pie. Probably with a glass of cheap port.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:45 AM on December 21, 2015


I want to eat a real mince pie before I'm done. Sounds good!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 12:54 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Confess, Fletch That doesn't sound like any tourtiere that I've ever had. Where are your spices? We always add in cinnamon nutmeg and cloves to our Tourtiere, and from quaking fajita's wikipedia link it seems that they agree. Your version sound more like an English variant, because who else would boil ground meat.

The real trick to a great meat pie is in the crust. Our piecrust is one that is specific to meatpie because it has less fat in it. Otherwise you end up getting soggy pastry at the bottom of the pie.
posted by koolkat at 1:32 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


Strange to me how this very British tradition is being talked about as if it were all-American, but frankly anything that encourages more meat pie consumption is good.
posted by Dysk at 1:37 AM on December 21, 2015 [6 favorites]


From the OP's What's Cooking America article:
...even in 1733 a writer still lamented that Puritans “inveigh[ed] against Christmas Pye, as an Invention of the Scarlet Whore of Babylon…the Devil and all his Works.”
Okay well now I have to try it.
posted by XMLicious at 2:25 AM on December 21, 2015 [7 favorites]


I'm all in favour of resurrecting the meat-filled mince pies of yore, but am a little saddened to hear all this trash talk about mince pies as we know them today. Many grandmothers in Ireland can produce a fruit mince pie that will knock your socks off. Suet is often involved.
posted by distorte at 3:01 AM on December 21, 2015 [9 favorites]


The ones from supermarkets, however, are more often inedible than not.
posted by distorte at 3:03 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, proper mince pies made with proper mincemeat (of the meat free kind) is far from 'sugary slop' and does indeed involve a lot of suet. Delicious as anything.
posted by Dysk at 3:17 AM on December 21, 2015


The alleged 'mincemeat' pies in grocery stores are a pale, pale imitation of my mom's pies; unfortunately she never let anyone know exactly what she put in there. (But I do know her fruitcake recipe involved weekly applications of an alcohol mixture throughout their two month long aging period....)

I've made real made-with-meat mincemeat: it's delicious, but you've really got to be dedicated to the whole process. It takes an amazing amount of time, money, and sheer physical labor.
posted by easily confused at 3:18 AM on December 21, 2015


If your mincemeat contains suet it's err not meat free... well not in a vegetarian sense anyway. :P
posted by diziet at 3:45 AM on December 21, 2015


Strange to me how this very British tradition is being talked about as if it were all-American,

Potted meat from Christie and Blyton ...
posted by infini at 3:47 AM on December 21, 2015


Around Christmas weird vestigial foods reappear. Fruitcake...

Eh? Since when is fruitcake weird and vestigial? I guess it may be so outside the UK, but here fruitcake is definitely one of the fundamental cake species... chocolate cake, Victoria sponge, coffee and walnut, fruitcake... no decent display of cakes is complete without it, at any time of year.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 3:47 AM on December 21, 2015 [11 favorites]


I bring you lihapiirakka
posted by infini at 3:48 AM on December 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


*reads description, suffers salivation-induced drowning*
posted by XMLicious at 4:41 AM on December 21, 2015


Place first set of ingredients in large pot. Cover with water. Boil for at least two hours. Finish by boiling off water until mixture is dryish. Separately, boil the potatoes. Drain when meat is ready. Mash potatoes with meat. Let cool. Put in crusts. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then at 350 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes. Makes 3 scant nine-inch pies. Serves 6 - 12.

Minus all that boiling (except of the potatoes), those same ingredients would make an alright shepherds pie. The only time I have seen someone boil ground meat was for "hamburger soup" in the midwest, so that's at least a bit of a thing.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:21 AM on December 21, 2015


It wasn't until I had an American friend over around Xmas time that I realised there's a deep, deep Atlantic divide when it comes to desserts made from dried fruit, alcohol and a variable quantity of sugar.

Mince pies, and their grander cousins the Christmas Pudding and the Christmas Fruit Cake, are so essential to me that I just can't understand the dismissive 'sweet glop' commentary here. There are good ones, there are disappointing ones, there are home made ones that are what you get used to, there are shop bought ones that aren't quite the same but do the job, there are freaking iced ones which you can't believe will work because dear god the sugar, and they don't work, but you eat them anyway for the illict buzz even though you are 37 now and should know better [1]. To hate on a category, no no, tsk tsk. But perhaps you need the weather for it: the dark days, the gloom, the drizzle, the chill. Mmmm, then alcohol soaked sweet fruity treasures sloshed with cream or brandy butter are what you need.

Oh, and as a vegetarian, I'm very happy to report that in the UK the majority of store-bought mincemeat and related seasonal products seem to be made with vegetable suet. I am pretty sure that mad cow disease spurred the shift from cheap meat blorp to 'how do they do that?' vegetable blorp.

[1] this may be the beginning of a BuzzFeed list of 10 ways you know you're me.
posted by AFII at 5:24 AM on December 21, 2015 [7 favorites]


Actually, I don't think the Midwest (or northern Midwest at least) ever stopped making these mincemeat pies. That recipe is pretty close to what my Grandma made every year.

And actually, this recipe is very close to the National Center for Home Food Preservation's version; with some adjustments to make it safe for canning of course! I'm hoping to try canning this recipe next year, my Grandma always canned her mincemeat filling so it was ready to go whenever she felt like having a pie in winter. It also made getting dessert ready for Christmas dinner a lot easier.

If anyone hasn't tried it before, you can can a lot of the standard fruit pie fillings too, it's awesome to just grab a jar off the shelf and make the crust and then you ave a pie just like that.
posted by scififan at 5:28 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


For anyone having trouble sourcing suet, the good news is that Atora suet, which has sustained generations of Brits, is available through Amazon, as is the vegetarian variety (which is indistinguishable):

Here.
posted by cromagnon at 6:35 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


So my question is, for those of us in the US, do we mean blackcurrants here? Or the what gets sold here as currants, which are in fact little raisins? The ban on blackcurrents in the US dates from 1911, well after some of these recipes were formulated, so I'm guessing we really mean blackcurrants.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 6:43 AM on December 21, 2015


Nope. Currants are dried grapes from Corinth. Or in real life, gross rock hard raisins.
posted by ambrosen at 6:59 AM on December 21, 2015


Strange to me how this very British tradition is being talked about as if it were all-American

What's weirding me out is that if they don't have suet, they don't have suet puddings or dumplings. How can you lose dumplings?

(brb, going shopping).
posted by Leon at 7:21 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


Mmmm christmas pudding with warm custard... Gonna be at my mom's in three days!
posted by chapps at 7:55 AM on December 21, 2015


Americans have dumplings, though I suppose they may be a bit different from UK dumplings. They mostly use butter or solid vegetable fat.
posted by sotonohito at 8:21 AM on December 21, 2015


Confess, Fletch That doesn't sound like any tourtiere that I've ever had. Where are your spices?

Hmmm, this is the only way I've ever known it. It's definitely a French Canadian thing, my mother spoke French until she went to school,my grandparents always spoke french and I've been to Quebec a few times visiting relatives. Spices in meat pie would be very weird in my experience.

Also, a few years ago my brother was in south west France and they had Tourtière on the menu and it was exactly what we're used to. Perhaps my ancestors came from there and the popular stuff is from somewhere nearby. I suppose I could ask my dad, he's done a bunch of genealogy stuff on our family.

Spices strike me as something rich people could afford so perhaps it's poor persons version.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:25 AM on December 21, 2015


The real trick to a great meat pie is in the crust. Our piecrust is one that is specific to meatpie because it has less fat in it. Otherwise you end up getting soggy pastry at the bottom of the pie.

It seems like leaf lard would be perfect for the crust.
posted by TedW at 8:26 AM on December 21, 2015


I have a 1964 Good Housekeeping cookbook, which is the same edition my mother had when I was growing up (in the 1980s). Pretty much the only things she ever made out of it were stroganoff and mac & cheese, but those were key foods of my childhood. Mom found one in immaculate condition, dust jacket & everything, and sent it as a Christmas gift. When I actually skimmed through more of it, there's so many amazing recipes that were O.o -- and one of them was actual mincemeat pie. I should photograph that & share it here!

Oddly enough, mom loves mincemeat, but only ever made the stuff with the jarred filling. Probably because the "real" pie was mind-blowingly complicated.
posted by epersonae at 10:00 AM on December 21, 2015


Other things to do with mincemeat
(remember, last year's mince meat is much better than this year's, and all you have to do is open it up every six months and give it a flick of brandy).
posted by dilaudid


Excellent links, and now I know why my mum so adored Fanny Craddock
posted by mumimor at 10:28 AM on December 21, 2015


Isn't nutmeg a hallucinogen? I can see how eating such a vast amount of spice might lead to weird dreams. My mother made mincemeat pies from the stuff in a jar but doctored them extensively. I loved them but I was one of those kids that would eat anything.
Antarctic explorers eat sticks of butter to get enough calories to stay warm so it's no surprise that birds in winter love their suet.
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:34 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


epersonae: please do, I'd love to see what a recipe from 1964 looks like.
posted by sotonohito at 11:16 AM on December 21, 2015


Christmas Pye, as an Invention of the Scarlet Whore of Babylon

A cook in the kitchen and a whore... well everywhere I suppose. Even the anthropomorphised depictions of female evil get stuck with the cooking.

The ban on blackcurrents in the US dates from 1911

I had to check this as I assumed you were out of your mind. Wowzers, this is fascinating to me. No ribena!?
posted by biffa at 11:17 AM on December 21, 2015


As for complication, I find that when making mine the most difficult and/or annoying part is peeling, coring, and dicing all the apples. The rest is basically just mixing stuff together.

But it is expensive to make a full recipe of my stuff. Buying the ingredients in San Antonio last week the bill for the recipe I posted above, not counting the spices because I already had those, came to about $56.

Admittedly, I get somewhere between 6 and 8 pies out of that, so per pie it isn't so bad. But it is a bit of a long term investment in food dollars, and if you have no idea whether or not you'll like the final result the prospect of spending that much can be daunting.
posted by sotonohito at 11:19 AM on December 21, 2015


My family have been eating mince pie as long as I can remember. We use a recipe brought over from England by my grandmother, and is, according to the family elders, the same recipe used by the royal family (Should that be capitalized?)

The legend says that the family cook had a sister who was a pastry chef at the palace.

It has a lot of suet, and no meat. But does contain a pint of sherry.

Early in our married life, my wife prepared a mince pie with commercial mincemeat. I commented that while it was good, it wasn't as good as the mincemeat my family made. She said nothing, but took the remnants to work.
posted by Pablo MacWilliams at 11:34 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Until about 3 years ago when he quit, my brother-in-law would bring home a Christmas pudding from his work at Buckingham Palace. They actually came from Fortnum & Mason but the bowl had the Queen's symbol on the side. They were pretty good (ok, very good) and my MiL finds the bowls come in very useful.
posted by biffa at 12:07 PM on December 21, 2015


The tourtière recipe posted by Confess, Fletch does seem odd without the spices, but I can see how the recipe would have been adjusted to American palates. Boiling the ground meat is a variant I've come across before in recipes on this side of the border, but there's no need for it as cooking it gently without added water will still yield a lot of liquid.

My recipe varies a little bit each year. Here's what I made on the weekend and will make again tonight. I like a 2:1 ration for pork:beef, but I used 3:2 this year because reasons.

Core ingredients (meat, onion, spices)
- 3 lb ground pork (the store called it lean, but it's pretty fatty compared to most beef)
- 2 lb ground beef
- 2 large onions, finely diced
Spices to taste: Starting amount is listed for each, add more if needed. If you think you need more than the max spicing indicated when you are ready to bake your pies, you have my blessing to turn it up to 11.
- Bay leaves: start with 2, max 4
- Ground cinnamon: start with 1 teaspoon, go up to 3
- Ground nutmeg: start with 1 teaspoon, go up to 3-4
- Ground ginger: start with 1 teaspoon, go up to 2
- Ground cloves: start with ONE HALF teaspoon, go up in ONE HALF teaspoon increments
(It's easy to put in too much cloves and make your pie taste like a toothache. *side-eye at
one brother*)
- Dry mustard powder: start with ONE HALF teaspoon, go up to 2
- Dried thyme: start with 1 teaspoon, go up to 2
- Salt and pepper to taste
Binder
- 3 large potatoes
Pastry
- Enough for three 9" pies. Homemade is great if you can do it, but there's no shame in using frozen pastry from the supermarket. I used Tenderflake crusts for years before I made my own pastry, and it was always quite nice.

1) Scrub and peel the potatoes. Put the peels on a baking tray with some olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe rosemary and bake at 425 degrees until crispy. (This is for you, the cook. These oven chips don't go in the pie.) Steam, boil or pressure cook the peeled potatoes while you start cooking the meat. Once they're done, drain and reserve a little of the cooking water (maybe 1/4-1/2 cup).

Potato alternatives:
a) Cook the potatoes as shown, but instead of mashing them later, use a ricer after cooking and stir the "rice" into the meat.
b) Don't cook the potatoes, but grate them and cook them from the beginning with the core ingredients. You will have to cook the mix longer to cook the potatoes through.


2) Mix all the core ingredients in a large pot (wide and shallow if you can get it) and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. Break up the large chunks of meat as best as you can. Get the spicing to a point where it feels nice, but remember that you can/may add more later in the process.

Snack on the oven chips while this cooks.

3) When the meat is cooked through and is no longer pink, the onion is also soft and cooked through, and the raw grated potatoes (if used) are thoroughly cooked, drain the ingredients in a big colander over a big bowl and reserve the liquid.

4) If you didn't already include potatoes in the mix, mash the potatoes in one of these ways:
a) With a little cooking water, salt and pepper
b) With butter, salt and pepper
c) With the drained liquid from the meat mixture, plus salt and pepper. Use more or less fat from the liquid as you like.

5) If you have a food processor, pulse the meat and potatoes a few times to turn them into a cohesive set of light, tasty meat crumbles. Don't overwork it into paté. Check the spicing and adjust one last time. If you don't have a food processor, break it down and mix it as well as you can by hand.

FRIDGE OPTION: If your kitchen looks like a disaster and you're DONE, feel free to shove the cooked meat into some containers and leave it in the fridge while you clean, sleep or drink. You will need to reheat the mix and check the spicing before adding it to the pastry.

6) Preheat the oven to 375 F. Lay the bottom crust in each pie, spoon in the warm meat mixture and top with pastry, cutting in vents. Bake the pies on a cookie sheet for about 45 minutes.

These freeze well for a couple of months if wrapped in foil before bagging.
posted by maudlin at 12:07 PM on December 21, 2015 [6 favorites]


They actually came from Fortnum & Mason but the bowl had the Queen's symbol on the side

As in her cipher (EIIR) or the coat of arms? If the latter it's likely just advertising that they have a Royal Warrant ("By appointment to The Queen").
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:28 PM on December 21, 2015


I bloody love a mincepie.

That is all.

(Of the vegetarian non meat sort)

And I feel for you on the otherside of the Atlantic for your lack of mincepies, suet, fruit cake and (as revealed in a recent Ask) coffee and walnut cake.
posted by Helga-woo at 1:07 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Does anyone know whether chicken fat would work instead of suet? Or perhaps just using a fattier cut of beef?
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:11 PM on December 21, 2015


Chicken fat makes delicious pastry. I don't think it would behave quite the same as beef suet because of the different proportions of saturated/unsaturated fats.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:33 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


We've lost so much, Helga-woo! And in only three generations.

43rdAnd9th: Eh? Since when is fruitcake weird and vestigial? I guess it may be so outside the UK, but here fruitcake is definitely one of the fundamental cake species... chocolate cake, Victoria sponge, coffee and walnut, fruitcake... no decent display of cakes is complete without it, at any time of year.

I want to live in your world. Especially if it also includes some mince pie at Christmas.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:42 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hey Helga-woo! Canada is over here across the Atlantic, too, and we have mince pies a-plenty. At least in my corner of the country. Not to mention my dad will be using plenty of HP sauce on any piece of meat coming his way, and I have fingers crossed for my mom's Yorkshire pudding over the holiday, too. Oh, I am so ready for the holiday...

We even have Christmas Crackers, which I recently saw on the blue are not a thing in the US. (Is it really true? I had no idea! How do you folks down south know which lotto numbers to play on boxing day?).
posted by chapps at 2:43 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


And a mince pie with a slice of really strong mature cheddar. Oh my God yes.
posted by Helga-woo at 2:51 PM on December 21, 2015


We share the same nation, chapps, but it sounds like we live in different worlds. A family's recipes are a form of culture that's easily lost, and seldom regained in this age of microwavable, packaged foods.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:52 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


I have a 1962 Joy of Cooking and a 1959 Fannie Farmer at hand and thought I'd take a look to see what was available to a midcentury cook in the US. Both have mincemeat recipes that are meat-based, and both are meant to produce large quantities for canning. (One says 20 pies, the other 20 pints.) The ratio is four pounds of meat ("lean, chopped beef or heart") to two pounds of beef suet, plus fruits, sugar, alcohol and spices. Fannie Farmer includes apples; Joy of Cooking does not.

Both also have recipes for vegetarian mincemeat, calling it "California Mincemeat" and "Mock Mince," using neither meat nor suet, which is what I think I've been served a few times over the years.

One of the fun things about having old family cookbooks is that you can tell which recipes were used frequently, because they are stained and torn. I'll note that neither mincemeat page shows any signs of use at all; whomever in my family stopped making mince did so a good sixty years ago.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:57 PM on December 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


Kevin Street, I was thinking about the food as family history, and it is interesting to me that my matrilineal line (i.e. knowing the people cooking in my family until this generation are women) married into the mince pie tradition... my grandmother on my mom's side is of Eastern European origin. She married a Scottish-Canadian and passed on, it seems to me, her husband's food traditions to my mom and me.

Similarly, my mom's sister married a German and that side of the family is where I always anticipated a good black forest cake or apple strudel.

Makes me wonder if my entire culinary culture is actually the recipes published in Chatelaine, or that plus a kind of womanly art of joining two families in a nation of (mostly) immigrants through cooking!
posted by chapps at 3:00 PM on December 21, 2015


Also of note in my family, my great aunt was still cooking with a wood fire oven when microwaves were on the market. She made the best cookies, but her recipes said things like "bake until done" and no temperature. Hard to replicate. Should try while camping!
posted by chapps at 3:01 PM on December 21, 2015


Not to mention my dad will be using plenty of HP sauce on any piece of meat coming his way

If this is supposed to indicated that Canada is somehow similar to Britain in culinary terms, then please be aware that you have misunderstood something about how the British use brown sauce.
posted by Dysk at 4:35 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh no! Sorry Dysk.
posted by chapps at 4:48 PM on December 21, 2015


Sorry all of UK! Apparently despite clinging to mince tarts, we are but a pale shadow of our ancestors.
posted by chapps at 4:51 PM on December 21, 2015


In 1861, Elizabeth Beeton advises:

"MINCEMEAT.

1309. INGREDIENTS – 2 lbs. of raisins, 3 lbs. of currants, 1–1/2 lb. of lean beef, 3 lbs. of beef suet, 2 lbs. of moist sugar, 2 oz. of citron, 2 oz. of candied lemon-peel, 2 oz. of candied orange-peel, 1 small nutmeg, 1 pottle of apples, the rind of 2 lemons, the juice of 1, 1/2 pint of brandy.

Mode.—Stone and cut the raisins once or twice across, but do not chop them; wash, dry, and pick the currants free from stalks and grit, and mince the beef and suet, taking care that the latter is chopped very fine; slice the citron and candied peel, grate the nutmeg, and pare, core, and mince the apples; mince the lemon-peel, strain the juice, and when all the ingredients are thus prepared, mix them well together, adding the brandy when the other things are well blended; press the whole into a jar, carefully exclude the air, and the mincemeat will be ready for use in a fortnight.

Average cost for this quantity, 8s.

Seasonable.—Make this about the beginning of December."

and then:

"MINCE PIES.

1311. INGREDIENTS – Good puff-paste No. 1205, mincemeat No. 1309.

Mode.—Make some good puff-paste by recipe No. 1205; roll it out to the thickness of about 1/4 inch, and line some good-sized pattypans with it; fill them with mincemeat, cover with the paste, and cut it off all round close to the edge of the tin. Put the pies into a brisk oven, to draw the paste up, and bake for 25 minutes, or longer, should the pies be very large; brush them over with the white of an egg, beaten with the blade of a knife to a stiff froth; sprinkle over pounded sugar, and put them into the oven for a minute or two, to dry the egg; dish the pies on a white d’oyley, and serve hot. They may be merely sprinkled with pounded sugar instead of being glazed, when that mode is preferred. To re-warm them, put the pies on the pattypans, and let them remain in the oven for 10 minutes or 1/4 hour, and they will be almost as good as if freshly made.

Time.—25 to 30 minutes; 10 minutes to re-warm them.

Average cost, 4d. each.

Sufficient—1/2 lb. of paste for 4 pies. Seasonable at Christmas time."

I'm not sure what a pottle is, but otherwise the recipes seem fairly close to the ones already offered here.
posted by praemunire at 5:58 PM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


Per google a pottle is an archaic term for a volume equal to 1/2 gallon.
posted by sotonohito at 7:03 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


As in her cipher (EIIR) or the coat of arms? If the latter it's likely just advertising that they have a Royal Warrant ("By appointment to The Queen

It's the cipher, I think my MiL checked and F&M do them in plain white in the shop. I will see about posting a pic if they being one down.
posted by biffa at 6:14 AM on December 22, 2015


A pottle of Guinness, please
posted by infini at 7:24 AM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


pottle pottle pottle
posted by infini at 7:25 AM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


pootle

*drags self out the door with big hook*

posted by infini at 7:26 AM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


koolkat: Your version sound more like an English variant, because who else would boil ground meat.

Boiled ground meat is not unheard of in my French Canadian foodways, my great grandmother certainly cooked it that way, though I personally don't favour it. I think it likely comes from a time when ground meat was especially tough and you had to cook it longer in order to break down the tissues. For my pies, I don't boil the meat in a large amount of water but I braise my Tourtiere in Oatmeal Stout after the meat (onions, celery, fatty pork, veal and beef) is cooked through. At that time I always add the spices - cloves, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg (more of the first 2 less of the second 2), white pepper, summer savoury and Colman's mustard powder. I've had plenty meat pies in Quebec that are solely spiced with cloves, as my mother does [We were pretty poor but we always had at least cloves in our meat pies], or not at all but personally I'd find it strange for it to not have spices at all. I believe historically the spice mixture likely used in meat pies comes from a variant of Quatre épices, and like in the mince pies discussed above, the spices helped preserve the meat. I've also had it where the meat was thickened with bread crumbs, soda crackers, instant mashed potatoes, crushed dried ramen noodles, corn flakes, roux, gravy and nothing at all...

Personally, I add my own controversial elements to the mix - I add root vegetables when I braise in a ratio of about 1:3 to the meat and I use oatmeal (not the steel cut oats but flakes) to thicken. Like any home cooked food every family seems to have their own variant and everybody argues which is better. Martin Picard has a variant topped with calf brains!

Check out this CBC Radio interview from way back which sheds a little bit of light on the subject.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:46 AM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


Huh, I must have read it a dozen times, and only now does this make sense. Here's HPL discussing the real artist's ability for horror, in Pickman's Model:
Well, I should say that the really weird artist has a kind of vision which makes models, or summons up what amounts to actual scenes from the spectral world he lives in. Anyhow, he manages to turn out results that differ from the pretender’s mince-pie dreams in just about the same way that the life painter’s results differ from the concoctions of a correspondence-school cartoonist.
posted by Dr Dracator at 3:05 PM on December 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


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