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Mince-Meat (Two bowls chopped apples one)
Two bowls chopped apples, one of chopped meat, with one-fourth pound suet, grated rind and juice of one lemon, two tea-cups mo lasses, one large tea-spoon each of cinnamon and cloves, one nutmeg, one pound raisins, half pound currants, one-fourth pound citron cut fine, one quart cider, and sugar and salt to taste. --Mrs. J. R. Wilcox, New Haven,
Like most nineteenth-century mincemeat formulas, this one is a shopping list rather than a method: it assumes the cook already knows the meat is cooked first, the whole mass is simmered down, and the result is spooned into pastry weeks later. The proportions are the point.
- "Two bowls" is a real problemThe bowl was a kitchen-specific measure and no conversion can be trusted. Work by ratio instead: two parts chopped apple to one part chopped meat, and treat a bowl as roughly a quart if you want a batch that matches the pound of raisins and quart of cider.
- "Chopped meat" means cooked beefIn this period it is lean beef — neck, shin or shoulder — boiled until tender, cooled, and chopped fine, with the cooking liquid sometimes added back. It is not raw ground beef, and the recipe will not work if you treat it as such.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard kidney fat, sold by butchers and often frozen. A quarter pound for this volume is a lean mincemeat by Victorian standards. Grate or chop it while very cold; if you substitute butter the mixture will not set the same way.
- CiderA quart of cider in 1880s New England could mean sweet, boiled or hard cider; the recipe does not say which. Fermented cider would contribute acid and alcohol that aided keeping, while sweet cider gives a milder, sweeter result and less keeping power.
- SpicesOne nutmeg means a whole nutmeg, grated — roughly two teaspoons. With a large teaspoon each of cinnamon and cloves, this is a well spiced but not extreme mixture; the cloves in particular will dominate if you use pre-ground spice that has sat for years.
- CitronCandied citron peel, not lemon and not the modern glacé fruit mix. It is sold around the winter holidays or from baking suppliers; candied orange peel is the closest substitute.
- The step the recipe omitsCombine everything and simmer gently, uncovered, an hour or more until the apples collapse and the liquid is thick and syrupy rather than watery. Undercooked mincemeat weeps into the crust and gives a soaked bottom.
- Keeping itThe original was packed into a stone crock in a cold cellar and relied on sugar, acid and alcohol. Refrigerate or freeze instead; do not water-bath or pressure can by this recipe, as it gives no jar size, headspace or processing time.
- Baking and yieldYield cannot be fixed, since it depends on what you take a bowl to be; assuming a quart, expect roughly four to five nine-inch pies. The recipe gives no baking directions at all; for a modern double-crust mincemeat pie, 425F for 15 minutes, then 350F for 30 to 35 minutes, until the vents bubble, works well.
Mincemeat began as a genuine meat dish — chopped beef or mutton preserved with dried fruit, spice and suet — and lost its meat only gradually over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so that most modern jarred products contain no meat, though some still include suet. Recipes like this one sit at the midpoint: the beef is still there and still structural, but the sugar, molasses, raisins, currants and citron have already tipped the balance toward dessert. Mincemeat was generally printed under Pastry rather than Meats in books of this kind, which suggests where their readers thought it belonged. The use of cider and molasses rather than brandy and refined sugar fits American household practice, where the cider barrel was closer at hand than the spirit merchant; the attribution to a New Haven contributor reflects the way these compilations gathered signed recipes from correspondents and reprinted them with the name attached.