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Mince Meat (Mrs George W Loud)
— Mrs. George W. Loud
Two pounds of beef's tongue, two pounds of suet, two pounds of raisins, two pounds of currants, four pounds of apples, two pounds of sugar, one pound of citron, two pints of wine, two pints of brandy, one glass of rosewater, two grated nutmegs, half an ounce of cinnamon, one-quarter of an ounce of cloves, one-quarter of an ounce of mace, one teaspoon of salt.
For the paste-For each pie allow half a pound of butter to three-quarters of a pound of flour. MISS ANNA M. ROSSELL.
A full Victorian mincemeat: real meat, two pints of wine and two pints of brandy, and no cooking directions whatsoever, because every cook using this book already knew them. What follows fills in the assumptions.
- The tongue must be cooked firstThe receipt says only "two pounds of beef's tongue" and gives no directions; mincemeat of this kind is normally built on tongue simmered until tender (roughly three hours for a whole tongue), then skinned, trimmed and chopped fine while still warm. Whether the two pounds is meant as raw or as trimmed cooked weight is not stated. Raw meat chopped into a fruit mixture and left to stand is not what this recipe intends.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys, sold by butchers on request. Grate or chop it while very cold, or use frozen shredded suet. Ordinary butter or shortening will not behave the same way, as suet melts at a higher temperature and gives mincemeat its characteristic texture.
- Currants are dried, not freshThese are Zante currants, small dried grapes, not the fresh red or black currants of a garden. Rinse and pick them over; older stock was sold uncleaned.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks around the winter holidays or from baking suppliers. Chop it small. Mixed candied peel is the usual substitute.
- ApplesThe four pounds is most likely whole-fruit weight, which would leave roughly three pounds pared and cored, though the receipt does not say. Use a firm tart variety that holds its shape rather than a sauce apple.
- A glass of rosewater, and the spice weightsA "glass" in this period usually means a wine glass, about 2 fluid ounces, but the measure is genuinely loose here; modern rosewater is generally more concentrated than the home-distilled kind, so start with a tablespoon. By weight, half an ounce of ground cinnamon is only about 1¾ tablespoons; a quarter ounce of cloves is about 1 tablespoon and a quarter ounce of mace about 1¼ tablespoons. Two grated nutmegs come to roughly 4 to 5 teaspoons.
- The wineA fortified wine such as sherry, madeira or port is the likely intention, though the receipt says only "wine." Together with the brandy it supplies much of the keeping power, so reducing the spirits substantially changes the result and shortens its life.
- Storing itThe original assumed a covered stone crock in a cold cellar for weeks of ripening. Keep it refrigerated in clean jars instead, or freeze it, and do not attempt to water-bath can it. Mincemeat containing meat and suet is a low-acid product and needs a current tested pressure-canning recipe if you want it shelf-stable.
- The paste and the ovenHalf a pound of butter to three-quarters of a pound of flour is close to a rough puff paste, and it is enough for a double crust on one deep 9-inch pie. Work it very cold. Start the pie at 425F for about 20 minutes to set the bottom crust, then drop to 375F for another 30 to 35 minutes; the filling is already cooked, so you are only baking pastry.
- YieldThe listed solids alone come to about fifteen pounds, and with the four pints of wine and brandy the batch runs closer to eighteen pounds, enough for something like nine or ten pies. Halving or quartering it is reasonable for a modern household.
Mincemeat descends from the medieval spiced meat pie, where dried fruit, sugar and warm spices were seasoning for meat rather than dessert alongside it, and the meat gradually receded; by the mid-twentieth century much commercial American mincemeat contained no beef at all. Tongue was one of several common bases -- it chops to a fine, even, almost buttery texture with no gristle, and boiled tongue was a familiar cold-larder item in a nineteenth-century household. The two pints of wine and two pints of brandy are doing preservative work as much as flavoring work, in a kitchen where the crock stood in the cellar and was drawn on as pies were wanted. Note that this entry carries two names, Mrs. George W. Loud above and Miss Anna M. Rossell below; double credit lines of this sort are not unusual in community cookbooks compiled from handwritten contributions, though the reason for it in this instance is unknown.