Mincemeat is a mixture of chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits and spices, and often beef suet, usually used as a pie or pastry filling. Mincemeat formerly contained meat, notably beef or venison. [1] Many modern recipes replace the suet with vegetable shortening.
The "mince" in mincemeat comes from the Middle English mincen, and the Old French mincier both traceable to the Vulgar Latin minutiare, meaning chop finely. The word mincemeat is an adaptation of an earlier term minced meat, meaning finely chopped meat. Meat was also a term for food in general, not only animal flesh. [2]
English recipes from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries describe a fermented mixture of meat and fruit used as a pie filling. These early recipes included vinegars and wines, but by the 18th century, distilled spirits, frequently brandy, were being used instead. The use of spices like clove, nutmeg, mace and cinnamon was common in late medieval and renaissance meat dishes. The increase of sweetness from added sugar made mincemeat less a savoury dinner course and helped to direct its use toward desserts.
Pyes of mutton or beif must be fyne mynced & seasoned with pepper and salte and a lytel saffron to colour it / suet or marrow a good quantitie / a lytell vynegre / pruynes / great reasons / and dates / take the fattest of the broath of powdred beefe. And if you will have paest royall / take butter and yolkes of egges & so to temper the floure to make the paest. [3] | Pies of mutton or beef must be finely minced and seasoned with pepper and salt, and a little saffron to colour it. [Add] a good quantity of suet or marrow, a little vinegar, prunes, raisins and dates. [Put in] the fattest of the broth of salted beef. And, if you want Royal pastry, take butter and egg yolks and [combine them with] flour to make the paste. |
In the mid- to late eighteenth century, mincemeat in Europe had become associated with old-fashioned, rural, or homely foods. Victorian England rehabilitated the preparation as a traditional Yuletide treat.
Ingredients— 2 lb. of raisins, 3 lb. currants, 1+1⁄2 lb. of lean beef, 3 lb. of beef suet, 2 lb. of moist sugar, 2 oz. of citron, 2 oz. of candied lemon-peel, 2 oz. of candied orange-peel, 1 small nutmeg, 1 pottle of apples, the rind of 2 lemons, the juice of 1, 1⁄2 pint of brandy.
Mode— Stone and cut the raisins once or twice across, but do not chop them; wash, dry, and pick the currants free from stalks and grit, and mince the beef and suet, taking care the latter is chopped very fine; slice the citron and candied peel, grate the nutmeg, and pare, core, and mince the apples; mince the lemon-peel, strain the juice, and when all the ingredients are thus prepared, mix them well together, adding the brandy when the other things are well blended; press the whole into a jar, carefully exclude the air, and the mincemeat will be ready for use in a fortnight. [4]
By the late 19th century, "apple mincemeat" was recommended as a "hygienic" alternative, using apples, suet, currants, brown sugar, raisins, allspice, orange juice, lemons, mace and apple cider, but no meat. [5]
A recipe for apple mincemeat appears in a 1910 issue of The Irish Times , made with apples, suet, currants, sugar, raisins, orange juice, lemons, spice and brandy. [6]
There is also a similar recipe using green tomatoes instead of apples to create mincemeat in the 1970s book Putting Food By. [7]
By the mid-twentieth century, most mincemeat recipes did not include meat, but might include animal fat in the form of suet or butter, or alternatively solid vegetable fats, making it vegan. Some recipes continue to include venison, minced beef sirloin or minced heart,[ citation needed ] along with dried fruit, spices, chopped apple, and fresh citrus peel, Zante currants, candied fruits, citron, and brandy, rum, or other liquor. Mincemeat is aged to deepen flavours, with alcohol changing the overall texture of the mixture by breaking down the meat proteins. Preserved mincemeat may be stored for up to ten years.[ citation needed ]
Mincemeat can be produced at home. Commercial preparations, primarily without meat, packaged in jars, foil-lined boxes, or tins, are commonly available.
Mince pies and tarts are frequently consumed during the Christmas holiday season. In the northeast United States, mincemeat pies are also a traditional part of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Like other pies, [8] mince pies are sometimes served with cheese, notably cheddar. [9]
A mince pie is a sweet pie of English origin filled with mincemeat, being a mixture of fruit, spices and suet. The pies are traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world. Its ingredients are traceable to the 13th century, when returning European crusaders brought with them Middle Eastern recipes containing meats, fruits, and spices; these contained the Christian symbolism of representing the gifts delivered to Jesus by the Biblical Magi. Mince pies, at Christmas time, were traditionally shaped in an oblong shape, to resemble a manger and were often topped with a depiction of the Christ Child.
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit, nuts, fruit preserves, brown sugar, sweetened vegetables, or with thicker fillings based on eggs and dairy. Savoury pies may be filled with meat, eggs and cheese or a mixture of meat and vegetables.
Christmas pudding is sweet, dried-fruit pudding traditionally served as part of Christmas dinner in Britain and other countries to which the tradition has been exported. It has its origins in medieval England, with early recipes making use of dried fruit, suet, breadcrumbs, flour, eggs and spice, along with liquid such as milk or fortified wine. Later, recipes became more elaborate. In 1845, cookery writer Eliza Acton wrote the first recipe for a dish actually called "Christmas pudding".
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White pudding, oatmeal pudding or mealy pudding is a meat dish popular in the British Isles.
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Succade is the candied peel of any of the citrus species, especially from the citron or Citrus medica which is distinct with its extra-thick peel; in addition, the taste of the inner rind of the citron is less bitter than those of the other citrus. However, the term is also occasionally applied to the peel, root, or even entire fruit or vegetable like parsley, fennel and cucurbita which have a bitter taste and are boiled with sugar to get a special "sweet and sour" outcome.
Bread and butter pudding is a traditional bread pudding in British cuisine. Slices of buttered bread scattered with raisins are layered in an oven dish, covered with an egg custard mixture seasoned with nutmeg, vanilla, or other spices, then baked.
The Accomplisht Cook is an English cookery book published by the professional cook Robert May in 1660, and the first to group recipes logically into 24 sections. It was much the largest cookery book in England up to that time, providing numerous recipes for boiling, roasting, and frying meat, and others for salads, puddings, sauces, and baking. Eight of the sections are devoted to fish, with separate sections for carp, pike, salmon, sturgeon, and shellfish. Another section covers only eggs; and the next only artichokes.
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Pie in American cuisine has roots in English cuisine and has evolved over centuries to adapt to American cultural tastes and ingredients. The creation of flaky pie crust shortened with lard is credited to American innovation.
Green tomato pie is a pie in American cuisine that can be made like other fruit pies by sprinkling sugar, flour, cinnamon and other spices or raisins over sliced tomatoes and pieces of butter, or by simply cooking the ingredients on the stovetop before baking in a pastry-lined dish.
Mincemeat at the Wikibooks Cookbook subproject