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Allspice (Tablespoons each nutmegs)
} 2 tablespoons each 2 nutmegs grated 2 tablespoons lemon extract 1 teaspoon almond extract 1½ cups brandy 3 cups liquor in which beef was cooked Mix ingredients in the order given, except brandy, and let simmer one and one-half hours; then add brandy and shavings from the rind of the lemons and oranges.
This is the tail end of a mincemeat recipe: the page picks up mid-ingredient-list, so the fruit, sugar, suet and boiled beef that make up the bulk of it are missing. What survives is the spicing and the method, and both are worth reading closely.
- The text is a fragmentThe stray brace and "2 tablespoons each" point back to a list of spices on the previous page — in mincemeats of this period that is commonly cinnamon, cloves and mace alongside the allspice, though the missing list cannot be reconstructed with certainty. Do not attempt to scale from what is printed here; find a complete mincemeat formula and use these proportions as a guide to seasoning.
- "Liquor in which beef was cooked"Not alcohol. Mincemeat of this era begins with a piece of lean beef simmered until tender, chopped fine, and its cooking broth reserved. Three cups of that broth carry the meat flavour into the mixture.
- Two grated nutmegsA whole nutmeg yields roughly 2 to 3 teaspoons grated, so this is somewhere between 1½ and 2 tablespoons of nutmeg — assertive, but in line with the tablespoon-scale spicing throughout. Grate it fresh; pre-ground nutmeg has lost most of what the recipe is asking for.
- Lemon and almond extractTwo tablespoons of lemon extract and a teaspoon of almond are large doses by current standards. Add half, taste after the simmer, and adjust.
- Why the brandy goes in lastCooking it off would waste both the flavour and its preservative effect. The cup and a half goes in after the hour and a half of simmering, along with the citrus zest, whose oils would go bitter and flat over so long a boil.
- "Shavings from the rind"Zest only — pared thin with a knife or peeler, no white pith. The definite article shows the lemons and oranges were already called for earlier in the part of the recipe that is missing.
- The simmerNinety minutes at a bare bubble, stirred often. Meat-and-suet mincemeat scorches readily once the sugar begins to catch; a heavy pot and low heat matter more than the exact time.
- Keeping itNineteenth-century households packed mincemeat into crocks and kept it in a cold cellar for weeks, relying on sugar, spirit and acid. A modern kitchen should refrigerate it and use it within a couple of weeks, or freeze it. Do not water-bath or pressure can this without a tested current recipe — meat-based mincemeat needs specified processing times.
Mincemeat began as a way of keeping meat: chopped beef or tongue packed with suet, dried fruit, sugar, spirit and heavy spicing, all of which discourage spoilage. The meat had long been retreating u2014 "mock" mincemeat made from apples and raisins alone was familiar, and the green tomato mincemeats of farm cookery were common u2014 but the older beef version held on in holiday baking, and the reserved beef broth here is the clearest sign of its origins. The tablespoon-scale spicing and the cup and a half of brandy also mark it as a keeping preparation rather than something mixed and baked the same afternoon: mincemeat was made in quantity in late autumn, crocked, and drawn on for pies through the winter.