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Mince Pie (III)
Mrs. Samuel Platt.
Two pounds of boiled tongue, four pounds of suet, six pounds of currants, three pounds of chopped apples, the peel and juice of two lemons, a pint of sweet wine, a nutmeg, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, a quarter of an ounce of mace, one pound of citron, one pound of orange and lemon peel.
This is a mincemeat — the filling only, in the older sense where "mince pie" meant the meat mixture rather than the pastry. It makes an enormous quantity by modern standards and assumes a cold larder.
- YieldThe ingredients total roughly 17 pounds, enough filling for something like eight or more 9-inch pies. Quartering the recipe gives a little over 4 lb, and is the sensible scale for a home cook.
- No sugar is listedMany mincemeat recipes of the period call for sugar or molasses; this one does not, so the sweetness comes only from the currants, citron, candied peel and sweet wine. Whether sugar was taken for granted or genuinely left out cannot be told from the text.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants — small dark raisins — not fresh red or black currants. Six pounds is about 18 cups; check them for stems and grit, which older recipes took for granted.
- SuetBeef suet, the hard fat from around the kidneys, ordered from a butcher. It should be chilled and grated or chopped fine, never melted. Four pounds is a very high proportion of fat; a modern version would use half that or substitute cold butter.
- Boiled tongueBeef tongue, simmered until tender (about 3 hours), peeled while warm, then cooled and chopped fine. Lean chopped beef or brisket works in its place. The meat is fully cooked before it goes in, which is the point of specifying boiled.
- Sweet wineA pint of sherry, madeira, or a sweet port. In a 17 lb batch it is present mainly for flavour rather than as a meaningful preservative.
- SpicesA quarter ounce of cloves or mace is about 1 tablespoon ground. Grate the whole nutmeg fresh -- a nutmeg yields roughly 2 to 3 teaspoons.
- StorageNineteenth-century kitchens kept mincemeat for months in a crock in a cold cellar, relying on sugar, fat and wine. Without the sugar this mixture is not reliably self-preserving: refrigerate it and use within a week, or freeze it.
- BakingThe recipe gives no baking directions. As modern practice, fill a double-crust pie and bake at 425F for 15 minutes, then reduce to 350F for 35 to 45 minutes, until the crust is browned and the filling bubbling at the vents.
Mince pie began as a genuinely meaty dish: medieval and early modern English cooks bound chopped beef or tongue with suet, dried fruit, citrus peel and spices, the sugar and alcohol serving as much to preserve the mixture through winter as to sweeten it. By the nineteenth century the meat was already receding -- many collections print several versions side by side, some with beef, some with only suet -- and by the twentieth century commercial mincemeat had dropped the meat almost entirely. That this book gives a third variant, contributed by name, is consistent with how community cookbooks worked: each subscriber sent in her own household proportions, and the editors printed them all rather than choosing between them. The tongue, citron and imported candied peel also suggest a special-occasion recipe for a reasonably prosperous kitchen, made in bulk for the Christmas and New Year season.