An American Food Site Misunderstood What Mincemeat Is and Published a Ground Beef Pie

Analogy past CS Jennings

Many years agone, every bit I poked through the unwanted books (also known every bit "dollar" books) at Half Price Books, I came upon a coverless, broken book that looked unusually old. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed to be volume four of The Encyclopediae of Cookery, published in 1904 in Akron, Ohio. The other volumes had gone missing; only volume four remained. It was the get-go antique cookbook I had ever encountered, and, in addition to being totally old, it really had photographs of the Victorian monstrosities popular at the time. At the plow of the century, it was extremely stylish to form jiggly towers of food or mold foods in curious, big molds so that they resembled castles, bombs, or other foods (the photograph of "Fish Ice Foam" comes to mind: a layer of lettuce topped by vanilla ice foam, fashionably molded into the shape of a fish).

Of form I bought information technology! And absolutely pored over information technology, absorbing everything I could about the nutrient means of 1900. I came away with a strong impression that, despite the enthusiasm for bombast and sleight of hand in presentation, people in the olden days got to eat better food than we mod Americans. Everything was organic, everything was handmade, and, earlier refrigeration, everything had to be picked-that-morning fresh.

Of course, many of the "old" dishes had passed out of circulation and become mysterious: hoecakes, hominy, aspic, terrapin soup, steamed puddings, croquettes, and parfaits. I longed to try them all, but the recipe that intrigued me the nigh was the recipe for mincemeat. Patently, it was a substance no householder could bear to be without! Gargan­tuan amounts were put downward yearly in rock crocks. Without refrigeration, the mincemeat was used for months, directly from the crock. The intensity of interest in method and recipe, the sheer number of recipes that used mincemeat (not merely pies only cookies, tarts, confined, puddings, and creams), and the enormous popularity of mincemeat seemed amazing to me. I had never known anyone to actually make (or eat) it, and similar plum pudding, I had only read about it in books ... old books. Like Oliver Twist and Little Women.

The earliest recipes for mincemeat date from the Center Ages, and though recipes differ in various respects over the hundreds of years since then, the essentials remain constant. Offset: minced meat. In fact, meatless versions of mincemeat just begin to show upwards in modern times (often called "mock mince­meat"), reflecting meat scarcity and World War 2 rationing. Secondly: fruit. Dried fruits, such as currants or raisins, diced apples, and citrus peels. Then the fancy stuff: carbohydrate, spices, and booze.

The spices and citrus peels, and fifty-fifty the dried fruits, had to come from the Orient, and part of mincemeat's initial cachet was its costliness. Prepared in medieval times by the great landowners and served to the tenants and laborers, for hundreds of years, mincemeat was the concluding word in sumptuous dining and showing off. As merchandise made the ingredients more affordable, folks began making their own mincemeat – still, however, reserving it for the holidays and common cold conditions. For a dish to be so beloved, for so long, and and so to simply disappear ... information technology didn't brand any sense to me. I decided to brand it, the right way, from the Encyclopediae of Cookery recipe, and encounter for myself.

The recipe from my beloved volume four reads as follows:

vii pounds of currants; 3½ pounds cored and peeled apples; 3½ pounds of beef; 3½ pounds of suet; one-half a pound each of citron, orange, and lemon peel; 2½ pounds java sugar; 2 pounds raisins; 4 nutmegs; 1 ounce cinnamon; a half-ounce cloves and mace; 1 pint brandy; and 1 pint white wine. Chop very fine, adding to pan as finished, cook, and shop in rock crocks.

Pretty simple, except: Where can you get citrons, and what are they? Like quince, a once common ingredient that has go so erased from our American cuisine that I couldn't observe a grocer who even knew what it was. I finally settled for grapefruits, reasoning that if a bitter and fragrant citrus fruit was called for (the definition in my dictionary), Texas pinkish grapefruit was the all-time I could do (there was no Internet at the time). Not knowing if I would similar it or non, the sheer cost, plus not having a pan huge plenty, caused me to cut the recipe in half; I didn't desire to cut it down any farther than that, considering I really wanted information technology to exist authentic. (As it was, I had to make information technology in an industrial kitchen, in a pan two feet in diameter. To brand the whole recipe? One would have to have a missionary-humid-sized iron kettle, the kind that is hung from a tree limb over an open burn. Seriously.)

I cheated slightly and had the butcher grind the beef and suet for me, but everything else I minced fine with a steel pocketknife, and believe me, information technology took all solar day long. (I think in the manor days, there would have been other kitchen serfs laboring alongside me!) Also, the recipe called for citrus peels, not juice, then I also ended upwards with quarts of orange-grapefruit-lemonade left over, a full bonus! Coffee sugar is just an old-fashioned style to say white sugar (when the recipe was written, the cook would have had to grate a solid brick of white sugar against a grater to granulate information technology), and the spices and spirits were easily obtained (in stark contrast to the Eye Ages, or fifty-fifty the 1850s, when they would accept had to come from the Far Due east in alpine ships, at ocean for months or years).

When all was added to the gigantic pan and mixed and cooked, I tasted information technology. It was ambrosial. Truly. Heavenly transporting! Mince­meat is one of those foodstuffs that is greater than the sum of its parts. Cinnamon and orangish, brandy and raisin flavors predominate, in the exact proportion that "tastes like Christmas" – in texture strangely light, despite its richness, highly spiced and flavored, yet wholesome and digestible. A miracle food!

A miracle in more than ways than i: Food historian Paula Marcoux writes that it was too one of the first convenience foods. Afterward all, it kept for months, and it was already made. That explains why mincemeat figures so heavily in the former cookbooks. Before the days of opening a can, information technology was i of the merely things at a housewife's fingertips that was ready to utilize. Mince pie for dessert? Easy! Make a pie crust, spoon in the mincemeat, and throw information technology in the oven. Mode faster and easier than peeling a dozen apples or slap-up a quart of pecans. Back when most families ate dessert twice a 24-hour interval, mincemeat was a godsend.

In one case I had it all jarred and sitting in my refrigerator at habitation, the claiming became: How was I going to get my friends to try information technology? Because, I quickly found, no one wanted to. Many of my friends had never fifty-fifty heard of mincemeat, and even if they had, the beginning question was e'er the aforementioned:

"Is there meat in information technology?"

Well, you can't prevarication. I establish that if I could persuade someone to take only one bite, the plate of mincemeat tarts would chop-chop disappear. That twelvemonth I fabricated quite a few mincemeat converts, some of whom ask me every Novem­ber if I will be making mincemeat. (I had plenty of mincemeat for years afterwards making that initial batch; even halved, that recipe fabricated nigh 12 pounds! It freezes well, by the way.)

Proselytizing for mincemeat opened my optics, even so. Without a incertitude, aversion to the idea of meat in a dessert is the cause of mincemeat's decline. Modern-day Americans think that mincemeat "sounds gross." Unless strong-armed into trying it, virtually Americans volition studiously avoid it (even meat-gratuitous versions), merely because the proper noun has the word "meat" in it. (If candy were still named "sweet­meats," probably no one would swallow candy either!) At the same time, we are condign a more than culinarily adventurous land, and many of the dishes in my Encyclopediae of Cookery have made comebacks over the last xx years: grits, venison sausage, sorrel, and beets, to name a few. It could happen for mincemeat. This calendar month, Saveur mag has an article on mincemeat, with several recipes; don't exist also surprised if chefs begin to rediscover this astonishing, adorable batter.

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Mincemeat

From the Encyclopediae of Cookery, Vol. iv

Ingredients:

vii pounds of currants

three½ pounds cored and peeled apples

3½ pounds of beef

3½ pounds of suet

Half a pound each of citron, orangish, and lemon peel

2½ pounds coffee sugar

ii pounds raisins

Four nutmegs

1 ounce cinnamon

A half-ounce cloves and mace

one pint brandy

1 pint white wine

Grooming:

Chop very fine, adding to pan as finished, cook, and shop in stone crocks.

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A Manageable Amount of Mincemeat

Ingredients:

1 pound of currants

Four large Granny Smith apples

½ pound of lean basis beef

½ pound of basis beef suet

One citron or grapefruit

Three oranges

Iv lemons

2 cups white carbohydrate

¾ cups raisins

I one-half of a nutmeg (or one heaping teaspoon)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon mace

¾ cup brandy

i cup white wine

Preparation:

Considering y'all will be using the peels, I advise using organic citrus fruits. Beef suet will have to be ordered from your butcher or meat department a solar day alee; information technology is not mostly called for. Go the very best footing meat and suet you can, information technology does make a divergence. I become mine from Richardson Farms.

Peel and cadre the apples and quarter them. Using a reamer, extract the juice from the citrus fruits and set aside. Place the pithy, juiceless citrus halves in your food processor and pulse them until they are finely chopped. In a large stove-meridian pan (such as a Dutch oven), melt the suet over medium heat, and when information technology begins to cook, add the ground beef. Then add the chopped citrus peel. Without wasting time cleaning the food processor basin, put the apple quarters into the processor, and chop them up, too. Add to the stove-top mixture, and requite it a skilful stir. Turn the heat to low.

Add the raisins, spices, brandy, and vino. Cook over low rut until the flavors meld, about an hour. If the mixture looks a little dry, splash some of the citrus juice in; otherwise, use the leftover citrus juice to make a nice cocktail, or savour it with breakfast.

When information technology's done, let it cool, and and so pack information technology in jars and store in the refrigerator. This mincemeat is especially adept made into small pies or tarts. If you brand a large, American-style pie, only fill the chaff up nearly halfway, and use a top crust or cutting out fun shapes (like leaves!) from crust dough with a cookie cutter and arrange them on top, sprinkled with white sugar.

If you don't utilise it all this holiday season, it will freeze well and can be used next twelvemonth.

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Source: https://www.austinchronicle.com/food/2008-11-28/mincemeat/

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