Okay. Mincemeat pie? Sick joke, or something the cat drug home and the dog won't eat?

[Bunny]

Having long been curious about the contents of mincemeat pie, I decided to make one to check it out for myself. I took the easy way out, though, and bought a jar of mincemeat pie filling and frozen pie shells. I just made it this morning and sampled it for the first time, and all I can say is: oh my dear lord.

Who in the hell came up with this? And for the love of god, why?

[Briarius]

1. it's English food...

nothing more really needs to be said

[Bunny]

10. *smacks head* Of course! I should have realized that!

They're responsible for kidney pie, too, aren't they?

[Richardo]

14. Not to mention spotted dick

Oops, I said NOT to mention

[AllegroRondo]

19. Is most English food based on a dare?

mincemeat
blood sausage
haggis

why on earth would a sane person eat this stuff?

[Richardo]

2. You're getting pretty religious these days, Bunny

I can't explain mincemeat pies. The name alone has kept me from eating it all these years, much like 'sweetbreads', 'tripe' and 'lima beans'.

[Bunny]

6. Eating mincemeat pie made me see Jesus, Richardo.

Quite a moving experience, too!

If it was just fruit, or just meat, it might make sense. But who in the hell decided to mix the two together?? That is just wrong.

[Bunny]

7. PS - I have it on good authority the lima beans were devised in

the Devil's workshop, with his own two hands.

[Richardo]

8. Hence their nickname, 'Satan's Nose Nuggets'

[Phillycat]

11. Oh.

Ew. LOL!

[Bunny]

12. Bwaaaahahahahahaha!

Satan's Nose Nuggets!!!

[hippywife]

3. I love mincemeat pie!

But only the kind with fruit. I've had the kind with the fruit and meat in it a long time ago but didn't care for it.

But then I love fruitcake, too!

[Bunny]

15. Well, there is clearly something wrong with you.

You like mincemeat pie AND fruitcake?? Gadzooks!

[hippywife]

29. They are acquired tastes

that come with a little age.

[stopbush]

47. I like mince pie, too.

The jars one buys usually contain no meat, unless they use suet as the fat. They're basically a fruit pie.

Everyone calls it "mincemeat" but...where's the beef?

Fruitcake? I loved it as a kid, but it's lost its appeal.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

4. My mom used to make that dreck

Gee, Mom, which pie do you THINK I'd prefer - pumpkin or mince???

[Bunny]

9. At some point someone will decide to combine the two, and a

new holiday tradition will be born. Pumpkin mincemeat pie.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

13. I second the

[Richardo]

17. Hm. The puke is actually pumpkin-colored

for the verisimilitude, Bunny!

[Bunny]

18. You are welcome, but that color would surely change if you mixed

it with mincemeat. And on that note, combined with your spotted dick reference, I think this thread has just degenerated beyond repair.

[Richardo]

27. Then my work here is done!

Happy New Year, Bunny

[Bunny]

31. Happy New Year to you too, Richardo!

[auntAgonist]

5. my first MIL used to make a wonderful mincemeat pie

from scratch. It was the best! I never liked store bought mincemeat or the kind you get in a jar.
Hers was never too sweet and the crust was heavenly.

aA

[Bunny]

16. Well, perhaps if I had an authentic mincemeat pie experience, I'd

feel differently. But gosh, I don't know....

[billyskank]

20. What I understand as "mincemeat pie," or more commonly "mince pie"

does not contain meat at all. The "mincemeat" is actually shredded carrot, raisins, sultanas and all sorts of other things.

I don't know if this is the same thing as you are talking about. And are you telling me that America never invented any food that was disgusting?

[Bunny]

22. This jar of pie filling that I bought contained raisins and such, but it

also contained a small quantity of meat. And, as for Americans inventing disgusting food? I give you the corndog:

[billyskank]

23. For the record

I like mince pies.

[Bunny]

25. Mince sounds okay, it's the meat that should be avoided!

[SOteric]

44. Not meat exactly.

Mincemeat is traditionally made with suet, an animal fat product not unlike lard.

I acknowledge, it is a bit offputting for most of us 'Merican folk. I find it just right, however if it's delivered in small, bit-sized amounts and surrounded by a lot of more neutral ingredients. So something like a brandied flan with just a quenelle-sized dollop of mince at the top is quite nice.

[YankeyMCC]

21. My Grandpa loved Mincemeat pie

I could never bring myself to try it, and my mother and her brothers and sisters never seemed to think much of it and I haven't even seen it on the table since he's been gone. So no opportunity to try it has come my way - I think I'd try it now if I found it on a party desert table or something.

[Bunny]

24. Maybe if you can find an authentic mincemeat pie, rather than filling

from a jar, it wouldn't be so bad. I'm not sorry I tried it, because I've always been curious, but I don't think I'll be eating it again anytime soon. Now I have to figure out what to do with a whole pie, minus one slice. I guarantee my kids won't go near it!

[YankeyMCC]

26. That's the tricky part of trying new food

If you don't get a good example of the food you're scared and it makes it all the more unlikely you'll try it again.

And I can imagine Bad Mincemeat can be REALLY BAD! I can understand staying away for a while.

[havocmom]

36. Spent 2 hours one New Year's Day throwing up one small piece of mincemeat pie

And, no, I wasn't hung over. It was homemade by a gent who was, otherwise, a damned good cook. I think that between WAY TOO SWEET, too many raisins (who knew THAT was possible?) the meat (elk) and the lard in his crust, my gall bladder threatened to sue my stomach for separate maintenance.

Thought I was gonna heave the soles of my feet.

[Generic Brad]

28. So what's in mincemeat filling?

Apples? Raisins? Brown sugar? Sheep intestines?

[Bunny]

30. That just about covers it!

Apples, raisins, molasses, etc. etc. and beef. And bitters. You can buy it boozed up too, but I chose the 'traditional' jarred mix.

[Generic Brad]

32. Haggis pie?

That sounds appealing. But I eat lutefisk, so take my opinion for what it is worth.

[xchrom]

33. oh. gack. lutefisk. -- and i'm a swede.

i do like fruit only mincemeat pie though. with bitters and booze.

[Generic Brad]

35. Especially with booze!

That's the only way some of us can gather the nerve to eat stuff like that.

[haele]

34. Proper home-made mincemeat pie is da bomb...

What's the difference between mincemeat pie and, say, pineapple glazed ham, orange chicken, turkey and cranberries and apple stuffing, or many of the different tasty fruit/herb/meat sausages that are sold at the fancy stores.

I can make you an old fashioned mincemeat pie that is both savory and sweet - with NO STORE-BOUGHT CITRON! (which really is the grossest stuff in the world).

My recipe comes from "The Servants Booke", a household pamphlet for household staff in Colonial America circa 1720.
Take 3 handfuls (appx. 1 cup) tender, tiny diced cubes of good sirloin lightly simmered in 2 oz brandy (or rum) and 2 oz spring water. Spice with a generic ginger/nutmeg/honey based pickling spice mix* that includes a hint of pepper for bite. Thicken the sauce - I use 1 egg yolk, 2 tablespoons flour and butter instead of the 2 oz of marrow from a leg bone the original recipe calls for. Mix in a handful (a little over 1/2 cup) diced tart apples or dried crab-apples, 1/2 lemon or orange worth of juice (about 2 tablespoons) and 4 shavings worth of zest of the same (about 1 tablespoon), a handful raisins, another handful blanched and chopped almonds and hazelnuts, (I add some pecans for some extra nutty body). Bake in a butter-based crust that's more of a pastry crust (similar to a beef wellington) than your standard pie crust.

* I've worked the spice mix to include 3 tablespoons grated ginger, 1 tablespoon grated nutmeg, 1 tsp crushed allspice, 1 tsp grated cinnamon stick, 1 tsp crushed cardamom, 1/2 tsp mustard powder or crushed mustard seed, 1/2 tsp mace, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 1/4 tsp grated black pepper, 1/4 tsp hungarian paprika, and either 4 tablespoons brown sugar or 1/2 cup honey or light molasses. The grated and crushed spices are whole "whole seed", so the flavor is fresh and biting)

Serve with Creme Freshe or unsweetened whipped cream.

This is a not too heavy luncheon buffet "tart" or dessert pie that is savory, spicy, and just slightly sweet and fruity - just delish. Even the pickiest white-bread and mayo co-workers who turn their noses up at "weird food" have loved it. The trick is not to tell them what is in it (unless they have allergies) other than it's a savory tart.

That's real mincemeat. What you get in the stores is some form of dried apple-nut pie with commercial fruitcake "candied fruits" and lard to thicken dumped in the standard commercial cardboard-tasting pie-crust. Those are just gross.


Haele

[Bunny]

39. What you have described sounds delicious. I'm sure I would like

that. I guess my method of making this was pretty crappy, wasn't it?

[haele]

48. 20th century mass cookbooks used cheap, brand name ingrediants in lots of foods -

It was assumed that the cook wanted to make the "fancy" high class meals and offered brand substitutes for what used to require the family or a special pantry or still-room servant to make the preserves for the house. Evaporated milk, margerine, candied fruit, canned veggies - home-made or hand made from the farm tastes different than what you got at the store. And cookbooks tended to create "traditional tastes" - what is now considered a dessert used to actually be a type of meal for over the winter months when fresh food wasn't easily availible.

Mincemeat and Fruitcake are primary examples. Mincemeat was origianlly a type of pickle - a way of preserving a good, leftover cuts of meat (or the not so good leftovers, like suet, the stewed up fatty and gristly bits)for lunches and other snacks for protien weeks later. If you wanted a light but filling pocket meal to take with you to work or on the road, you'd make a pie of it and instead of turning it into a pasty, with preserved greens and starches (beans or turnips), include preserved fruit, nuts, and spices during the winter months. Putting dried or preserved fruit also made it seem more a treat as well as a way of keeping the immune system healthier during a time when the average person did not have access to fresh fruits and veggies.
Almost everyone would have some form of preserved fruit for year-long use, whether as preserves, candies, pickle, or baked into some form of cakes to be able to create a mobile food source. It has been long understood that eating fruit staved off debilitating health problems such as scurvey or ricketts.
Early fruit cakes were generally bread-like, flavored and sweetened generally sweetened with spices and honey or treacle to cut the bland bread taste and highlight the preserved fruit's taste.
Moist cakes were difficult to make and used only for special occasions,when the produce was harvested, the average cook would make drier cakes for everyday use; bread-like, mostly used as breakfasts or afternoon snacks. The older recipes, like stollen breads or various raisin/apple breads indicate this. For parties, dry fruit bread would often be stewed with milk into a pudding mold and served with cream. If you knew you were going to have parties over the winter and wanted more of a cake texture as a special treat, for your guests, you would make your moist cakes during the harvest, wrap them in alcohol soaked cheesecloth, and then pack them in an airtight container to preserve them until you were ready to serve them later on.
As for using alcohol - in the winter, if you didn't have refrigeration, when you set up your preserved foods, you needed to soak most of what you were going to be eating from November through April in alcohol to keep it from going bad. Especially if you were going to start out with fairly fresh produce during August/September.

Sorry for the long-windyness, but I went into this little bit of preserving history to commisserate the current state of holiday foods. If you used something like the Betty Crocker Cookbook or the back of a cirtron container to make your mincemeat or fruitcakes, you would be getting 1930's or 1940's era recipes that reflected a world where housewifes who were trying to make the house party look "higher class" than they really were while making due with rationed or mass-produced cheap ingredients. Since sugar was hard to come by, the sweeter you could make it - using candied ingredients, the higher class it would seem. At that time at least.

If you had a 19th century or earlier recipe book, you could see a drastic evolution of cookery and food preperation - even with the same recipes you see in a Betty Crocker book. (real Marachino cherries come to mind...) And that evolution wasn't necessarily for the better.

Haele

[Bunny]

50. That's really interesting. I hadn't thought much about the changes

in recipes over the years. Your "long-windyness" is very much appreciated!

[mondo joe]

37. Just pour some EVOO on it.

It won't taste any better, but it could yield a fun RR flame war.

[Bunny]

41. Let's see - we haven't had a good RR flame war for at least 12 hours,

so I'd say we're overdue. I'll go first: EVOO sucks, and Rachel Ray is an abomination!

[China_cat]

38. Well, you used the worst possible ingredients

the jarred mincemeat is the pits. Horrid, horrid stuff. (The frozen pie shells and ready rolled out top crusts are ok, though)

You needed to start with the cake mincemeat. Break it up into little pieces. Add sugar (to your own taste...I use 1/2 cup). Add 1/3 c. brandy, 1/3 c. rum and 1/3 cup blended whiskey. Bring to a boil and cook until all the lumps are dissolved and the mixture is slightly thick. Pour into your pie shell, top with crust and bake until the crust is nicely done and the filling set.

Don't eat and drive.

[Bunny]

40. That sounds like just the right amount of booze to make it palatable.

Actually, haele's recipe in post #34 sounds very good, too. I agree that the jarred filling was probably my first mistake.

[China_cat]

42. Yes it does.

I've just never had the time to do it from that point. The cake mincemeat is the closest you're going to get to that level of scratch.

Oh, and I found out the hard way to be careful which rum you grab for the pies. I accidently grabbed the 151 proof dark one year. The pies caught fire in the oven. I managed to move the filling into new crusts but boy was that a good pie.

[tigereye]

43. call me when you are going to boil a pudding!

actually, the real version of mincemeat someone posted sounds really good.

[seaglass]

45. Ewww. I never heard of mincemeat with actual meat in it, my mom

makes it all the time. I thought it had suet in it and that's why I don't eat it.

[Strawman]

46. Mom made one every year at Xmas for my grandpa, never tried it once

It looked gross.

[mainegreen]

49. If it doesn't contain bits'o'bambi, it's not proper mincemeat!

Mmmmmmm, bambi.