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Christmas is one of the few remaining old western traditional festivals that is celebrated with great gusto by nearly everyone. Apart from the few “bah humbug” merchants, most people happily get involved with the traditional elements of Christmas even though its pre Christian meanings have been lost in the mists of time. Families come together at Christmas and decorate Christmas trees without realising this is a pagan tradition. Festive lights are hung and some families take the whole thing to excess and decorated their houses with so many lights that they can seen from miles away.
Christmas is a time to eat to excess and one of the highlights of a traditional Christmas is the mince pie. Like many Christmas traditions the mince pie is a bit of a mysterious thing to the uninitiated. Its light short crust pastry case is filled with mincemeat which rather confusingly does not contain minced meat but is a mixture of currants with exotic dried fruit peels, cinnamon and mace lashed with a splash of Brandy. Its hard to imagine how such a rich, exotic, eastern flavoured delicacy became a centre piece of the British Christmas festival.
To discover the origins of the Mince pie we have to look back a thousand years or so. Preserving summer foods for the long cold winters was of great importance for the survival of a family. Meat was smoked or salted but it was also known that putting meat in melted or rendered fat was another way of preserving food. This can still be be seen today in the preserved French duck dish, Confit de Canard. Fresh meat was highly prized and little was left to waste. The bones were picked clean and the scraps chopped and mixed with dried fruits to make the meat go further. This would then be cooked with animal fats that would melt sealing and preserving the meat when cooled. This mince meat mixture was sealed in stone jars and would last well into the winter. When the Crusaders of the 11th century returned home bearing exotic spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves the medieval cook added them to mince meat to boost its flavour.
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By the winter solstice, the mid winter festival that is Christmas, there were few fresh foods left to eat so a delicacy like mincemeat cooked in pastry cases was a highly prized dish.
The early mince pie was commonly known as Christmas Pye, Crib pie or manger pie. These oblong or square pies were meant to represent the cradle of Jesus. In the middle of each pie was the pastry figure of the baby Jesus, which the children of the house would traditionally remove and eat. The Crib pie was filled with various meats such as chicken, partridge, pigeon, pheasant, rabbit, ox or rabbit tongue or even animal livers mixed with the dried fruits, peels, sugar and spices of the mincemeat. Cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg were the three spices traditionally used to represent the 3 gifts given to the baby Christ by the Magi. Tradition also said one pie should be eaten on each of the 12 days of Christmas ending on Epiphany (6th of January) to bring good luck for the rest of the year.
By 1413 the mince pie had become a favorite of the English monarchs being served at the coronation of King Henry V. King Henry VIII made the Christmas pie the centre of his Christmas celebration and in 1588 Edward Allde published a recipe for “Minst Pye” in his book “Good Hous-Wives Treasurie”.
In 1657 the puritan Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell turned his attention to Christmas. The Christmas excesses went against his puritan beliefs and on December 22, 1657, Cromwell’s Puritan Council banned Christmas celebrations. Soldiers were sent out to seize Christmas food, especially Christmas pies which were considered by Cromwell “a guilt ridden forbidden pleasure”. Christmas festivities were a thing of the past as lamented in the last verse of Thomason Tracts ballad “The World Turned Upside Down”,
“To conclude, I’le tell you news that’s right, Christmas was kil’d at Naseby fight:
Charity was slain at that same time, Jack Tell troth too, a friend of mine,
Likewise then did die, rost beef and shred pie,
Pig, Goose and Capon no quarter found.”
The “shred pie” is the mince pie and “Naseby” is the battle Cromwell won to take power.
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In 1660 of Charles II was restored to the English throne and immediately reinstated the mince pie at the centre of his Christmas and brought puritanism in England to an end for ever.
By 1747 a recipe for mince pies in “The Art Of Cookery Made Plain and Easy” by Hannah Glasse made meat an optional extra. The meat had been reduced to just the use of shredded suet, the raw fat found around the kidneys and loins of beef and sheep. It has a low melting point and sets easily holding together the fruits and peels as well as boosting the calories to help on those cold winter nights. Hannah Glasse’s recipe suggested
“Take three Pounds of Suet shredded very fine, and chopped as small as possible, two Pounds of Raisins stoned, and chopped as fine as possible, two Pounds of Currants, nicely picked, washed, rubbed, and dried at the Fire, half a hundred of fine Pippins, pared, cored, and chopped small, half a Pound of fine Sugar pounded fine, a quarter of an Ounce of Mace, a quarter of an Ounce of Cloves, a Pint of Brandy, and half a pint of Sack; put it down close in a Stone-pot, and it will keep good four Months.”
This mixture is the same as the modern day mincemeat recipe. Hannah’s recipe goes on:
“When you make your Pies, take a little Dish, something bigger than a Soop-plate, lay a very thin Crust all over it, lay a thin Layer of Meat, and then a thin Layer of Cittron cut very thin, then a Layer of Mince meat, and a thin Layer of Orange-peel cut think over that a little Meat; squeeze half the Juice of a fine Sevile Orange, or Lemon, and pour in three Spoonfuls of Red Wine; lay on your Crust, and bake it nicely. These Pies eat finely cold. If you make them in little Patties, mix your Meat and Sweet-meats accordingly: if you chuse Meat in your Pies, parboil a Neat’s Tongue, peel it, and chop the Meat as finely as possible, and mix with the rest; or two Pounds of the Inside of a Surloin or Beef Boiled.”
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By 1875 meat had disappeared all together from the mince pie, and the size of the pie had reducued. Many recipe variations existed with nuts, apples and ginger. Cassals Dictionary Of Cookery has several recipes of which this is one:
“To make mince pies without meat, carefully prepare, as before directed, a pound an a half of fresh beef-suet, and chop it as small as possible; stone and chop a pound and a half of Smyrna raisins; well wash and dry on a coarse with two pounds of currants; peel, core, and cut small three pounds of russet apples; add a quarter of an ounce of mixed cinnamon and mace in powder, four cloves powdered, a pound an a half of powdered sugar, a tea-spoonful of salt, the juice of a lemon and its peel finely grated, and a table-spoonful of mixed candied fruit cut very small. Let all the above be well mixed together, and remain in the pan a few days. When you are about to make mince pies, throw a gill of brandy and the same of port wine into the pan, and stir together the mince. Line the required number of patty-pans with properly-made paste; fill from the bottom of the pan; cover, and bake quickly.”
Today most people prefer to eat one of the millions of manufactured mince pies at Christmas. In my family, Christmas Eve is for decorating the tree and making Mince Pies. The spicy fruity smell of mince pies baking mixes with the smell of the pine from the Christmas tree and is the perfect start to a traditional Christmas. It is of course also much nicer for Father Christmas to be left a home made mince pie with a glass of brandy by the children before that are packed off to bed!!!
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Today you don’t have to make your own mincemeat. Simply buy a jar and add some brandy and nuts, cranberries or whatever takes your fancy to make the mixture more exotic. If you prefer to do it yourself in November with the Christmas cake and plum pudding then here is a recipe. Happy Christmas.
Mincemeat Recipe
- 225g of Bramley or Russet apples chopped into small pieces
- 110g of shredded suet – This can be bought in a packed ready to use.
- 175g raisins
- 110g sultanas
- 110g chopped candied peel
- 117 g dark sugar
- Grate the peel of a large orange and squeeze the juice from it
- Grate the peel of a lemon then squeeze the juice out of it
- 50g chopped almonds or walnuts
- 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon of cloves
- 1/4 of a grated nutmeg or a big pinch of pre grated nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger
- 30 ml of Brandy
Mix all the ingredients together place in a heatproof baking dish and cover with foil. Preheat the oven to 110C/225F and cook for 2 and a half hours. Remove from the oven stir in the brandy and spoon into sterilised sealable jars.
To sterilise the jars wash them well and dry then place them on a baking tray in a medium oven for 15 minutes. Remove the jars and allow to cool. Be careful they will be hot!! If the jars are kept sealed and the mixture is spooned into them while it is still hot and the jar has a good seal the mincemeat should keep for 3-4 months.
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