Making Mincemeat with My Daughter

“Harriet Beecher Stowe recalls the enthusiasm with which she and her siblings helped make mincemeat for Thanksgiving: ‘We were willing helpers in all the preparations—the chopping of meat and apples, and the picking over of currants and raisins for the mincemeat pies.’” (1)

Theoretically, mincemeat should be one of the best recipes to make with children. They can inhale the scent of all the spices; stir the cider and brown sugar into the dark, glistening dried fruit; sample the raisins; (and, if they are a very fresh tween, attempt to sample the brandy).

On Halloween, (because, bizarrely, we had a snow day and trick-or-treating had been postponed), I embarked on a mincemeat marathon with my 9-year-old daughter, who is a very enthusiastic cook, in the hope that I might convert her from a mincemeat doubter to a mincemeat believer.

Things did not start off well: she was in a bad mood because she wouldn’t get to wear her Medusa costume that night.  But I set things up like an episode of “Chopped” (Food Network); we each had our stations—one on each end of the table—and we commenced. . . .

(Interval of 30 minutes passes]

. . . . I am alone at the table, spooning prepared mincemeat into freezer bags. My daughter is in her room, reading a Percy Jackson book with her door closed. You fill in the rest.

In the event you are more successful at convincing one of your children to make mincemeat with you, here are some lovely traditions you can start (2):

 

·        Decorate the top of the pie with a star to represent the Star of Bethlehem.

·        Stir the mincemeat mixture in a clockwise direction; counterclockwise brings bad luck in the coming year.

·        Make a wish on the first mince pie of the season.

·        Make your pies cradle-shaped for the Christ child, as they were originally made.

·        If you bake small pies, eat one mince pie on each of the twelve days of Christmas—it’s considered lucky.

Sources

1                    Hopley, Claire. 2002. “Mincemeat.” Early American Life, December. 56-60.

2                    http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/holiday-baking-mincemeat-pies/detail.aspx

No-suet Mincemeat

I made this yesterday, and it smells and tastes just like the traditional version. My whole house smelled like Christmas—on Halloween!

I tweaked a few things: used maraschino cherries instead of glacé cherries, added some homemade candied orange peel I made the day before, and added rather more than 6 tablespoons of brandy! I filled two gallon-size Zip-loc freezer bags to freeze until Thanksgiving.

(Note: for my American readers, please refer to a recipe converter in order to convert UK measurements to US: http://www.pastrywiz.com/conversion.htm 

Or just buy a good Escali scale so you can weigh things: http://www.escali.com/primo-best-selling-kitchen-scale

Hettie Potter’s suet-free mincemeat
(From Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess)

Makes about 2kg

Ingredients:
250g soft dark sugar
250ml medium dry cider
1 kg cooking apples, peeled, and grated
1 tsp. mixed spice
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
250g currants
250g raisins
250g dried cranberries
75g glacé cherries, roughly chopped
75g blanched almonds, ground
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
½ cup candied orange peel*
6 tbsp brandy

Instructions:
In large saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the cider over a gentle heat. Add all the ingredients, except the brandy, and simmer until everything has a pulpy consistency, about 45 minutes. Take off the heat, and when it has cooled, gently stir in brandy.

*optional

Suet?

[SOO-iht]
Found in beef, sheep, and other animals, suet is the solid, white, fat found around the kidneys and loins. Many British recipes call for it to lend richness to pastries, puddings, and mincemeats.

I love the richness of Christmas pudding and mince pies, and that richness comes from suet, whether you use the beef variety or the vegetarian, (which is nothing more than palm oil and rice flour). According to some people, it adds depth of flavor, or umami, to the mincemeat. Suet also has a very high melting point, so is perfect for pastry making, (same as butter).

But although woodpeckers, cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, and bluebirds, among others, are known to favor suet-based bird feeders, I can’t quite justify it for human consumption, unless of course, you are an Arctic explorer or drive sled dogs in Alaska, and you need it for your high daily energy requirement.

I can’t in good conscience use something that is 52% saturated fat. If depth of flavor is what you’re after, let your mince pies sit for a few days in a tin. Trust me: the taste improves, exponentially, over time.

If you disagree with me, and you’ve decided to use suet, however, here is a good source for it:

·        Wellness Meats: www.grasslandbeef.com; (877) 383-0051.

P.S. Whatever you do, please don’t use vegetable shortening or butter. It just doesn’t give good results, according to most articles I’ve read.

Five Great Ways to Use Mincemeat:

1.     In vanilla ice cream. One of my local ice cream places has sold Christmas pudding ice cream for years, and it is one of their most popular flavors. If you are making homemade vanilla ice cream, add the mincemeat just before the ice cream is frozen to your satisfaction—at the same time you would add nuts or broken cookies to the mixture. If you want to be really decadent, make pumpkin ice cream and add the mincemeat, or put a scoop of mincemeat ice cream on top of your apple pie.

(Or, microwave good quality, store-bought vanilla ice cream for 30 seconds to soften the ice cream enough to stir in the mincemeat.)

2.     As chutney or in a sauce. Use mincemeat alongside any meat or game that goes well with apples or dried cranberries/raisins, such as ham, chicken, and duck. My grandmother even serves it alongside her roast beef. You also can add it to your reduction sauce for your roast chicken or duck. Again, at the last minute, stir it in. It really adds depth of flavor.

3.     In Greek yogurt as a snack. Whether it’s vanilla or plain Greek yogurt, this might become your new favorite snack, as it is mine!

4.     In your favorite apple crumble (crisp) recipe. Just add a liberal amount to your apple mixture, thereby eliminating the need for any sugar and spice you might otherwise use. (You can also cut down on the amount of sugar and spice you use for your crumble topping.)

5.     For the ubiquitous, post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches. In America, at least, we are always looking for creative ways to use the turkey leftovers. This November 25 I will be trying my homemade mincemeat on top of the usual turkey breast, stuffing and white bread sandwich (which I like almost as much as the meal from the day before). If your mincemeat has dried cranberries in it like mine does, why wouldn’t it be as good as cranberry sauce or cranberry pepper jelly?

Please write and tell me other ways you use mincemeat! 

Operation Mincemeat

It was an article in the November 2008 issue of Saveur that did it. Got me so inspired to learn about mincemeat, make it, put it in a pie, and actually eat it. After all, it’s not something my generation was exposed to very much. And if it was, it was a pie at a church supper made with the commercial brands, None Such or Crosse & Blackwell mincemeat. It would have been dry and crumbly and bitter—not something you would like unless it was a nostalgic food memory for you, like it was for my mom, born in the 1940s to a mother and grandmother who made mince pies every Thanksgiving. Without fail, whenever I ask any of my friends about mince pie, I get a grimace, followed by “I had it once when I was a child, I think, and I hated it.” It seems to be right up there with Brussels sprouts or liver and onions in the childhood pantheon of hated foods. An acquired taste, probably. But when I made little mince pies last year at Christmas, a few of my bravest friends tried them and loved them. It’s all in the homemade mincemeat, you see.

From now until the end of the year, I plan to mostly blog about mincemeat.  This is the time of year when it has been made traditionally, in preparation for the holidays and the long winter ahead. (It originally was one of several ways to preserve meat for the winter.) I have been thinking about making several kinds this year, including a chocolate rum mincemeat recipe I found on the Internet, and my own take on a New England mincemeat, made with dry (alcoholic) cider brewed in New Hampshire, and maybe dried cranberries, blueberries, Concord grapes and walnuts to replace the usual brandy, raisins, currants, and almonds. What do you think?

Time to start hunting and gathering: quart-size canning jars, candied peel (or maybe I’ll make my own!), dried fruit, alcohol (brandy, cider, rum), almonds, etc. I feel like the old woman and young boy in Truman Capote’s "A Christmas Memory," in the orchard, collecting nuts for their fruitcakes in an old baby buggy.

Source
Kracklauer, Beth. “A Prodigal Pie.” Saveur, November 2008, P. 34-36. 

Of Presidents and Poets: Devotion to Marmalade

Of Presidents and Poets: Devotion to Marmalade

In order to establish historical precedence, I have compiled a completely random list of world figures who have indulged in marmalade devotion for your edification:

The sister of 17th-century poet Sir Philip Sydney—most exquisitely named Ambrosia— had a tutor named Lodowick, who was, on more than one occasion, rewarded for his efforts with a two-pound box of marmalade. (1) (N.B. It was in a box, because back then marmalade was something like quince paste.)

Martha Washington had her own orange marmalade recipe which she used at Mount Vernon, the home she shared with George (and more than a few children, grandchildren and servants), in Virginia. (I feel very much inclined to hunt down this recipe, so stay tuned; I will share it if I can find it.) (2)

“When the writer Louisa May Alcott visited Britain in the 1800s, she described ‘a choice pot of marmalade and a slice of cold ham’ as ‘essentials of English table comfort.’’’  (3)

Edward VIII of England used to eat his breakfast kipper with a dab of marmalade . . . . (Don’t ask me to explain what a kipper is; you can look it up on Wikipedia.) (4)

“Winston Churchill was a life-long devotee of both marmalade and marmalade (orange tabby) cats. In his own unique take on the breakfast of champions . . . legend has it that Churchill downed a glass of Pol Roger cuvée (Champagne) daily with his full English breakfast. He justified this exuberance by saying: ‘In victory, I deserve it; in defeat, I need it.’ Indeed.” (5)

Oh dear. According to newly released documents from the UK’s National Archives, Adolf Hitler enjoyed bread and marmalade for breakfast . . . . (6)

American writer William Faulkner would often awake at around 4 a.m., and he usually treated himself to an enormous breakfast of eggs, grits, fruit, bacon or steak, toast with Dundee marmalade, and black coffee. Then he would disappear into his library for several hours of writing. (7)

When asked what he is most homesick for when he travels, Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) answered: “Home-made marmalade and the smell of newly mown grass.” Palin really likes marmalade. In describing his perfect Sunday, he says, “I don’t like to waste a day so I tend not to lie in past 8.30am, however awful I’m feeling. I would probably do some exercises in a desultory sort of way, go downstairs and have a healthy breakfast of papaya, with a squeeze of lime juice on top. . . . I might also have some toast with my wife Helen’s homemade marmalade, which is particularly brilliant.’” (8)

In January 2011, The Sun reported that mum-to-be Victoria Beckham had “developed an intense pregnancy craving—for marmalade.” Apparently, Posh Spice enjoyed “lashings of the orange preserve in sandwiches and on toast, washed down with cups of English breakfast tea. A source said: ‘She can’t get enough of the stuff.’”(9)

*        *        *        *        *

I wonder who else couldn’t get enough. Did Shakespeare ever profess a liking for it? (Maybe Anne Hathaway had a special recipe.) Did Scott pack jars of marmalade for his Arctic expeditions? Did T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) carry it on camels into the desert? I wonder: how does the Queen feel about it?

1. (Sir Philip Sidney: Courtier Poet, Katherine Duncan-Jones, Yale University Press: 1991).
2. (Paula, D. (1985, February 10). Bittersweet Star of British Breakfasts. New York Times. p. 55.)
3. R. W. Apple, Jr. (2002, March 27). This Blessed Plot, This Realm of Tea, This Marmalade. New York Times. p. 1.)
4. Laura, P. (2011, February 24). (Why the kipper is smoking hot again. Daily Mail. p. 37.)
5. Toast and marmalade for tea. (2006). Money Management, 20(37), 36.)
6. Hitler’s nice side. (2010). Daily Telegraph, The (Sydney), 24. Also: Late riser Hitler had long lie-in. (2010). Sun, The, 24.
7. (Johnson, R. (2005). From Brahms to bathrobes: You may learn a thing or two from the work habits of some famous writers. Writer, 118(12), 28-30. (Debbie, N. (1999, December 12).
8. Palin misses marmalade. Sun-Herald, The (Sydney). p. 98.) (Michael, P. (2010). Also: myperfectsunday. Sunday Telegraph (London), 4.)
9. (Lia, N. (2011). Posh has a craving for mumalade. Sun, The, 3.)

The aforementioned green tomato mincemeat recipe

This is the mincemeat my mom and I made a few summers ago.  Very yummy.

GREEN TOMATO MINCEMEAT

(If you want to skip the suet, you can. You will just have to heat and thicken with a little cornstarch + liquid before using in a pie shell or shells. Use approximately 1 Tbsp.cornstarch dissolved in 1 Tbsp. of brandy or orange juice.)

Ingredients:
3 quarts chopped green tomatoes
1½ quarts peeled, chopped tart apples (such as Granny Smith)
2 cups golden raisins

1 cup currants

½ cup diced candied citron, lemon or orange peel

1½ cups chopped suet

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

2 teaspoons salt

3 cups brown sugar, firmly packed

½ cup apple cider vinegar

¼ cup lemon juice

¼ cup brandy

Instructions:

1.      Combine all ingredients in a large, heavy pan (not cast iron). (Omit cloves if you plan to freeze mincemeat.)

2.      Cook mixture slowly until it is tender and thick, about 1 hour or more. Stir frequently to prevent sticking.

3.      To can, pour boiling mixture into hot, sterile jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace; seal promptly. Process in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

4.      Store in a cool dry place.

5.      To freeze, pack cold mincemeat into freezer jars or containers, leaving about an inch headspace for expansion. Seal and freeze promptly.

Makes: 5 to 6 quarts 

Why mincemeat and marmalade?

Good question. I am so intrigued by these two old-fashioned products with their citrusy, ever-so-slightly bitter scent and taste. . . . I have spent the better part of a decade trying to learn more about them and trying to argue their merits with all my friends and family. I guess it’s a little bit nostalgia, a little bit obsession, a little bit a writer’s need to persuade.

A few summers ago, my mother and I made mincemeat out of my father’s green tomato surplus. Standing over the simmering pot of fruit and spices on a hot August afternoon, I felt like what we were doing was alchemy (in the sense that alchemy is “a process by which paradoxical results are achieved or incompatible elements combined with no obvious rational explanation.”) In the autumn I made Delia Smith’s traditional mincemeat recipe (all dried fruits and suet and brandy) and I was completely hooked. I knew my grandmothers and great-grandmothers always made mince pies at holiday time (their ancestors were English), and now I make them, which satisfies my sense of family food tradition. I make mince pies for Thanksgiving along with the pumpkin, and I make mini mince pies to serve and give away at Christmas, following the English tradition. I think I may have converted one mom friend to the joys of mince pies (the same one who claims to like my marmalade; she may just be being polite). Haven’t converted my daughter yet, but she’s only nine; there’s time.

From December through March I make gallons of marmalade. Last winter, I liked a slightly-altered version of Nigella Lawson’s pink marmalade recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/pink-grapefruit-marmalade-195086. I made seven batches and gave most of it away to unsuspecting visitors, family members, friends—even the mailman. Most are still dubious. My husband, although always very supportive of my creative efforts, does wonder why I spend so much time making marmalade and so little time cleaning the house and looking for more freelance writing gigs.

I have made marmalade from a can (MaMade) and added single-malt scotch (delicious); tried Florida orange (not so good) because I couldn’t easily obtain Seville oranges; Royal Navy-style lime marmalade with rum; and kumquat (wonderful). Others before me have written of the Zen-like experience of slicing the peel, stirring in the sugar and having your whole house pervaded with that tropical, humid, citrus-y scent . . . . there’s nothing like it when you’re looking out the window at four feet of snow.

When I get obsessed about things I want to write about them. Quite possibly, I may be the only person to actually consider writing a history of mincemeat. In this blog, I want to write a little of the history of mincemeat and marmalade, funny stories about people and mincemeat and marmalade, and occasionally, I will offer some well-tested mincemeat and marmalade recipes. (Sometimes, the two will be joined, as in my favorite way to make mince pies: line the little pastry cases with a teaspoon of homemade marmalade.)

I want to make mincemeat and marmalade-making popular again—more mainstream—dare I say fashionable?

So here goes . . . .please write to me with your own mincemeat and marmalade stories and ideas. . . .