Mincemeat

The social isolation of Covid was a long haul. After a long Iowa winter, after our family was safely vaccinated, I got a message from my oldest brother in May of 2021 asking if he could come down for the Memorial Day weekend. He wanted to make mincemeat. In summer.

Typically, the flavors of mincemeat are more akin to winter eating, being strong with clove, cinnamon and nutmeg. In fact, that trio of spices has symbolic significance since they are supposed the represent the Three Gifts of the Magi at Christmastime.

However, he is in possession of a family recipe for a true traditional mincemeat made with beef and suet and I looked at this as an opportunity to share an activity together that would not only preserve a bit of family history, but also explore a bit of forgotten food history. Mincemeat has been around for centuries but gradually the meat disappeared and it became the sweet-tasting dessert we know of today.

We’re not sure about the provenance of this recipe beyond the fact that it came from my uncle, Virgil. My brother’s innovation is to use a good quality cut of beef instead of junky scrap cuts, which is what people have traditionally done. We used a standard-sized beef chuck roast from the supermarket that we cooked and cut up into bite-size pieces.

Finding beef suet on short notice was a bit of a trick. Suet is a crumbly fat that surrounds the kidneys and organs of cows and sheep and was prized by bakers, but is not a common item anymore. The Atora brand has been around since the 1800s and I was able to order it online.

The recipe calls for a HUGE amount of citron. The fresh fruit was completely out of season and grocery stores are not carrying anything like candied fruit except during the winter holidays. We decided to make our own candied citrus peel from scratch and it turned out glorious. Making your own candied mixed peel from scratch is really not that hard and there is no comparison between that and the gooey, DayGlo-colored commercial stuff you can buy in stores.

We decided to substitute dried cranberries for currants. Currants are very pricey and I already had a stockpile of dried cranberries. We also liked the idea of having the tartness of the cranberries to counter the sweetness of the other fruits and brown sugar.

The final result is, hands down, the best tasting mincemeat I’ve ever had. There’s a complexity to the flavor that is not remotely there with modern mincemeat made without beef and suet. Modern mincemeat is dominated by sweetness. The sweetness of a traditional mincemeat is appreciated more because it plays off the depth that is anchored by the beef and suet. It’s like a funk band with a really good bass player.

This recipe makes eight quarts. It’s a huge amount and we did not try to size it down. It does freeze well.

It was a lovely weekend and I was grateful for the chance to preserve a family tradition and work on this project with my brother together.

Ingredients:

• 2 -3 lb. Beef Chuck Roast
• 1 lb. Suet, ground
• 5 lbs. Apples, peeled and diced. Tart varieties like Granny Smith preferred
• 3 lbs. Raisins
• 1 lb. Candied Mixed Peel, chopped
• 2 lbs. Dried Cranberries
• 2 ½ lbs. Brown Sugar
• 1 tbsp. Ground Cinnamon
• 2 tbsp. Ground Cloves
• ½ tbsp. Nutmeg, freshly ground
• 1 quart Apple Juice, unsweetened
• Juice of one Lemon
• 1 pint Molasses, mild or full flavor
• 1 tbsp. Sea Salt
• ½ tbsp. Ground Pepper
• 1 cup White Vinegar

Directions:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350°F. and bake chuck roast for one hour. Allow to cool and cut roast into bite-size pieces.

Peel and dice apples.

Step 2: Combine beef, suet, apples, raisins, candied mixed peel, and dried cranberries.

Combine brown sugar, salt, pepper, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg. Add to the mincemeat and mix well.

Mix in the apple juice, lemon juice and molasses.

Bring to a simmer and cook for one hour, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool. Refrigerate and freeze excess.

Notes:

Mincemeat has been around for many hundreds of years and came about as a means of preserving meat without salting, curing, smoking or drying it.

Mince pies descended from meat pies made from mutton and spices and came to be associated with Christmas in England after the Crusaders brought back spices from the Middle East. The trio of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg came to be viewed as symbolic of the gifts given by the three wise men on Christmas night. Mince pies were baked in the shape of a crib. Mince pies of the Middle Ages were made of 13 ingredients to symbolize Christ and the 12 apostles.

The mincemeat pie was once banned in England. The Puritans, under Oliver Cromwell, thought celebrations like Christmas and Easter were too decadent and not biblical since they aren’t specifically mentioned in the Bible. According to the website for The Cromwell Museum, Parliament introduced a new ‘Directory of Public Worship’ in 1645, designed as a replacement for the Book of Common Prayer. It said that Christmas, Easter and other such festivals were no longer to be observed with special services or celebrations.

I mentioned the Book of Common Prayer in my post about Christmas Pudding with Brandy Sauce because that is where the tradition of “Stir-up Sunday” comes from as the day to start making Christmas Pudding. On the last Sunday before Advent, which is five weeks before Christmas, the opening words of the Book Of Common Prayer reads: “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people,” and this date has been used for generations as the day for families to gather and “stir-up” the Christmas Pudding. I imagine there was an element of poetic “stick-it-in-your-eye” when this tradition came about that was aimed at the Puritans.

There’s an old English tradition that says the mincemeat mixture should be stirred in a clockwise direction when cooking in order to bring good luck. It was considered to be unlucky to cut the pie with a knife. They used to be made as hand pies and one pie was eaten for each of the 12 days of Christmas as a way to ensure a year of good fortune.

According to the website for The Mince Pie Club, tradition also says that one should make a wish whilst eating one’s first mince pie of the festive season, and that mince pies should always be eaten in silence. Mince pies should traditionally have a star on top, to represent the Christmas Star which led the shepherds and Magi to the baby Jesus in Bethlehem.