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English Mince Meat
5 lbs. raisins, seeded 5 lbs. currants 5 lbs. suet 5 lbs. light brown sugar 5 lbs. apples finely ½ teaspoon mace 4 lbs. citron chopped 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1½ lbs. blanched 2½ cups brandy almonds Cook raisins, suet, apples, citron, currants, and sugar slowly for one and one-half hours; then add almonds, spices, and brandy.
Mince Meat (without Alcoholic Liquor) Mix together one cup chopped apple, one-half cup raisins seeded and chopped, one-half cup currants, one-fourth cup butter, one tablespoon molasses, one tablespoon boiled cider, one cup sugar, one teaspoon cinnamon, one-half teaspoon cloves, one-half nutmeg grated, one salt-spoon of mace, and one teaspoon salt. Add enough stock in which meat was cooked to moisten; heat gradually to boiling-point, and simmer one hour; then add one cup chopped meat and two tablespoons Barberry Jelly. Cook fifteen minutes.
Two recipes in one entry: a vast suetted fruit mixture in the English manner, and a small meat-containing version below it. The ingredient list of the first has been scrambled by the original two-column typesetting — read it as 5 lbs each raisins, currants, suet, brown sugar and finely chopped apples, plus 4 lbs citron, 1½ lbs blanched almonds, 1½ teaspoons mace, ½ teaspoon cinnamon and 2½ cups brandy.
- ScaleThe first recipe totals over 30 lbs of raw ingredients and will yield somewhere in the region of 25-30 lbs of mincemeat, enough for well over a dozen nine-inch pies. Quartering it is sensible unless you are provisioning a household for a season, though the spice and brandy quantities will need rounding.
- The hinge: low heat and constant stirringSugar, fruit and suet in that quantity will scorch on the bottom long before the top is warm. Use the widest heavy pot you own, keep it at a bare bubble, and scrape the base every few minutes for the full hour and a half.
- Brandy goes in off the heatThe spirit is added after cooking for a reason — it is the preservative and the flavour, and boiling it away leaves neither. Cool the mixture somewhat before stirring it in.
- SuetBeef suet from a butcher, shredded or grated cold, is what is meant. Packaged shredded suet works; vegetable shortening does not give the same set and is not a like-for-like swap by weight.
- Currants and citron"Currants" here are dried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants. Citron is the candied peel of the citron fruit, sold at Christmas in cubes — candied orange and lemon peel is the usual substitute, though it is sweeter and less resinous.
- Boiled cider and barberry jellyIn the second recipe, boiled cider is sweet cider reduced to about a seventh of its volume, sold by New England producers and easily made at home. Barberry jelly has all but vanished from shops; redcurrant jelly is the closest tart stand-in.
- Salt-spoonA salt-spoon is about ¼ teaspoon. The teaspoon of salt in the small recipe is not an error — it is seasoning meat, not fruit alone.
- StorageNeither batch is processed for shelf storage, and the second contains cooked meat and stock. Refrigerate or freeze both; the brandied version keeps for months chilled and improves for the first few weeks.
Mincemeat began as a way of preserving meat in sugar, spice, dried fruit and spirit, and the medieval and Tudor versions were genuinely meat pies. By the time Fannie Farmer compiled the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book in 1896, the two lines had diverged: the "English" mincemeat here has dropped the meat entirely and keeps only the suet, while the smaller recipe beneath it retains chopped cooked beef and its cooking liquor. The pairing with an explicitly alcohol-free alternative fits a period in which temperance sentiment was strong in Boston, though how commonly cookbooks offered both versions is harder to pin down. The bulk of the first recipe suits a preserve made in quantity when apples were in season and drawn on through the winter as pies were wanted.