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Mock Mince Meat
Six soda crackers, rolled fine; two cups of cold water; one cup of molasses; one cup of brown sugar; one cup of sour cider; one and one-half cups of melted butter; one cup of raisins, seeded and chopped; one cup of raisins, unseeded; one cup of currants; two eggs; one tablespoon of cinnamon; onehalf tablespoon of allspice; one teaspoon of nutmeg; one teaspoon of cloves; one teaspoon of salt; one wine-glass of brandy. Mix all well together, adding last the water, molasses, cider, brandy and eggs. This makes a good mince meat for those who find the ordinary variety too rich.
A meatless, apple-less mincemeat built on cracker crumbs — the sort of filling New England cooks made when the pork barrel was empty or the household objected to suet. The original assumes you know what to do with it once mixed, so the working notes matter more than usual here.
- It is a filling, not a finished dishNo baking directions are given. Treated as any mincemeat, it would go into a lined pie plate under a vented top crust; the temperatures that follow are a modern suggestion rather than the book's -- start hot, about 425F for 15 minutes, then 350F for 30 to 40 minutes until the filling bubbles. Letting the mixture stand a few hours, or overnight in the refrigerator, lets the crumbs swell and the spices marry.
- Soda crackersThe forerunner of the modern saltine, though period crackers were larger. Six rolled fine give only about a quarter of a cup of crumbs by modern measure, and they do the work suet and lean beef do in a true mincemeat -- body and a slight chew.
- Sour ciderCider that has turned, sharp and lightly alcoholic, not sweet supermarket cider. The nearest modern stand-in is hard cider, or sweet cider with a tablespoon or two of cider vinegar stirred in. The acidity is structural; without it the molasses and brown sugar are cloying.
- A wine-glassIn American books of this period a wine-glass is about 2 fluid ounces, a quarter cup. Not a modern stemmed glass.
- Two kinds of raisins"Seeded" meant seeds picked out by hand; "unseeded" meant left whole, seeds and all, because seedless varieties were not yet universal. Use two cups of dark raisins total, roughly half of them chopped, and skip the picking.
- The butter is as printed, and it is a great dealOne and a half cups of melted butter against a few spoonfuls of cracker crumbs is extraordinarily rich, and sits oddly with the closing claim that this is for people who find ordinary mincemeat too rich. It may be a misprint for half a cup. Half to three-quarters of a cup gives a filling that sets rather than weeps.
- Spice measured by the spoonfulA full tablespoon of cinnamon and half a tablespoon of allspice suit the large volume, but ground spice fades on the shelf. Old jars will taste flat here; buy fresh or grate the nutmeg yourself.
- Yield and keepingThe measured ingredients come to something over two and a half quarts, enough for two generous nine-inch double-crust pies with some over. Because nothing is cooked or sealed, keep it covered in the refrigerator and use it within a week, or freeze it.
Mock mincemeat belongs to a large family of nineteenth-century "mock" dishes — mock turtle soup, mock oysters, mock duck — in which a cheap ingredient stands in for an expensive or unavailable one. Real mincemeat took lean beef or beef tongue, suet, apples and a long spell of ripening; a cracker-and-raisin version could be assembled quickly from what was already in the pantry. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns and The Delineator, issued its cook book to the same audience of practical housekeepers, and the closing line here is a fair statement of purpose: not thrift alone but a pie that would not sit heavily after a large winter dinner. The brandy is worth noticing — it survives in a recipe otherwise designed for economy.