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MINCE PIES (another way)
Of suet, chopped very fine and sifted, two pounds; currants, two pounds; raisins, one pound; apples, two pounds; bread, half a pound; red and white wine (mixed), three-quarters of a pint; a glass of brandy (these two last according to taste); the peel of two small lemons, and the juice of one; four ounces of candied orange-peel, cut. Mix, with cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, and salt, to taste. If preferred, omit the bread, substituting two biscuits.
This is a mincemeat mixture rather than a pie method — the filling for a batch of small pies, given in the bulk quantities a Victorian household expected. Everything here is workable today, with a few translations.
- What is missing: sugarUnlike most modern mincemeat, this list contains no sugar or sugar syrup at all, relying on three pounds of dried fruit and two of apples for sweetness. If you want the familiar taste, expect to add sugar (dark brown or demerara, 8-12 oz for this quantity) to taste as you mix.
- SuetBeef suet from a butcher, grated on the coarse side of a box grater while very cold, or shredded packet suet. "Sifted" most likely refers to shaking the finely chopped suet through a sieve so the shreds stay separate rather than clumping; the recipe itself says no more than that.
- Bread, or the two biscuitsHalf a pound of bread is best read as dry white breadcrumbs rather than fresh slices — they absorb the wine and juices so the mixture is not sloppy, though the recipe does not specify. The alternative of "two biscuits" means two hard plain biscuits or rusks of the period, crushed; the weight is genuinely ambiguous, but around 2 oz of crushed dry biscuit is the sensible reading.
- Liquid measuresThree-quarters of an imperial pint of mixed wine is 15 fl oz, about 1 3/4 US cups. A "glass" of brandy in this period is usually taken as a wineglassful, on the order of 2 fl oz; the recipe itself tells you to judge both by taste.
- Weighing the applesTwo pounds of apples is probably best read as prepared weight — peeled, cored and chopped small — though the recipe does not say. A firm tart apple such as Granny Smith holds its texture better than a soft eating apple.
- Spicing"To taste" over a mixture of this size (the listed ingredients total nearer nine pounds than six) works out to something like 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp grated nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ground mace and 1/2 tsp salt. Mix, taste, and adjust before it sits.
- Keeping itTraditional mincemeat keeps because of high sugar and spirit; this version is comparatively low in both, so treat it as a short-keeping mixture. Refrigerate in a covered jar and use within two or three weeks, or freeze it.
- Yield and bakingYield -- The quantities total nearer 8 to 9 lb of mincemeat once the fruit, suet, bread, peel and liquids are added up. The recipe gives no pastry, oven or baking instruction at all, so any temperature and timing is modern guidance rather than something the text supplies.
Mince pies were originally exactly that — pies of minced meat, often beef, mutton or tongue, with dried fruit, spice and suet, a survival of the medieval habit of treating sweet and savoury as one continuum. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the meat gradually dropped out while the suet stayed, which is why a recipe like this one, from a later nineteenth-century household cookery dictionary, is meatless yet still built on two pounds of beef fat. The heading "another way" shows that the book gave more than one version of the dish, and this is the plainer sort, leaning on wine and citrus peel rather than sugar and a long maturing. The candied orange peel and the mace belong to an imported-grocery trade that had by then made such a list unremarkable, goods that had been luxuries a century earlier being sold by weight in town shops.