Mock Mince Pie
4 common crackers, rolled 1½ cups sugar 1 cup molasses 1/3 cup lemon juice or vinegar
What survives here is the ingredient column only: no water, no crust, no method, no oven. Treat it as a component list and expect to supply the rest from any standard double-crust pie procedure.
- Common crackersThese are the hard, dry New England crackers still sold as Vermont common or Montpelier crackers, and historically called Boston crackers; they are not graham or buttery snack crackers, and oyster crackers are a smaller, related but distinct item. Four of them roll out to roughly three-quarters to one cup of coarse crumbs; unsalted saltines are the closest supermarket stand-in.
- The list is incompleteThe list looks incomplete -- comparable mock mince fillings usually also carry liquid (water or cider), butter, chopped raisins and a mix of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, plus pastry for two crusts. As given there is no fruit and no spice, though the molasses and lemon juice do supply liquid.
- MolassesUse unsulphured cooking molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and will dominate. Household molasses of the period was generally lighter in flavor than modern blackstrap.
- SweetnessA cup and a half of sugar plus a cup of molasses is at the top of the modern range if these quantities are meant for one nine-inch pie, though the original gives no yield. Cutting the sugar to a cup gives a filling closer to current palates, with little effect on the set.
- The acid is the pointThe third of a cup of lemon juice or vinegar is what makes this read as mincemeat rather than as sweet cracker pudding. Do not reduce it; cider vinegar works better than distilled white.
- OvenThe original gives no oven direction at all. A modern double-crust pie of this kind is usually baked at 425F for the first 15 minutes to set the bottom, then 350F for another 30 to 40 minutes, until the filling bubbles through the vents.
- YieldThe original states no yield; these quantities would suit roughly one nine-inch double-crust pie, six to eight servings. The filling thickens as the crackers swell, so it should look slightly loose going into the shell.
Mock mince pie belongs to a whole family of nineteenth-century American "mock" dishes -- mock turtle soup, mock oyster, mock apple -- in which cheap pantry staples stand in for something costly or out of season. True mincemeat meant suet, chopped beef or tongue, dried fruit and usually brandy, put down in a crock in the autumn; mock versions used soda crackers, green tomatoes or nothing but apples and spice, and could be made in an hour from what was already in the house. The cracker-and-molasses form is generally traced to New England kitchens, where hard common crackers were a year-round staple, and it is often noted that temperance households favored these versions because they carried no liquor.