mincemeat-pie-msg - 11/23/15 Period mincemeat pies. Recipes. NOTE: See also the files: pies-msg, tarts-msg, fruit-pies-msg, meat-pies-msg, minced-meat-art, meatloaf-msg, sausages-msg, veal-msg, puddings-msg, fruits-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 07:05:54 -0500 From: vjarmstrong at aristotle.net (Valoise Armstrong) Subject: Re: SC - Tartys in Applis-NEW recipe-enjoy Tyrca wrote: >Very interesting, Ras, and it brings up a question that I have had for >some time, about mincemeat. I grew up with mincemeat pies for >Christmas as something with _meat_ in them. My mother usually used >leftover roast beef or venison, put it through a hand grinder, and >added the apples and raisins, and canned the filling to use for the >holidays. It is my father's favorite. As I grew older, and went more >out into the world, I discovered that other people I talked to had >never heard of meat in mince pies. They thought I was crazy. > >Did they really use meat in mincemeat pies in period? Or is my family >just an abberation? Any recipes? Anyone? Fruit in medieval meat pies was a very common occurance. Actually, until the second half of the fifteenth century recipes for meat pies with fruit seem to be much more common than for fruit pies without meat. Many meat pies were baked in a heavy flour and water crust that served mostly as a container for the ingredients and could stand up under long cooking times. Some writer's have claimed that the innovation of a lighter and more edible pie crust and suggested that this new pie crust made the fruit pies (which needed shorter cooking times) much more popular. This is all supposition on the part of the historians so I set out to see if I could verify it by scanning a number of cookbooks for recipes for fruit pies that did not include meat. Out of about twenty English, French and German cookbooks from the 14th to 16th century one percent or fewer recipes were for fruit pies in the earlier two centuries while twelve percent of all the 16th century recipes were for fruit only pies. These are imperfect statistics since most of my 16th C. sources were German - - so it might be a regional fad. Valoise Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 21:59:41 EDT From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Mincemeat Pies In a message dated 98-10-12 08:59:16 EDT, Tyrca wrote: << Did they really use meat in mincemeat pies in period? Or is my family just an abberation? Any recipes? Anyone? >> The Good Hous-wives Treasurie, 1588 To Make Minst Pyes Take your Veale and perboyle it a little, or mutton. Then set it a cooling: and when it is colde, take three pound of suit to a legge of mutton, or fower pound to a fillet of Veale, and then mince them small by themselves, or together whether you will. Then take to season them halfe an unce of Sinamon, a little Pepper, as much Salt as you think will season them, either to the mutton or to the Veale, take eight yolkes of Egges when they be hard, half a pinte of rosewater full measure, halfe a pound of Suger. Then straine the Yolkes with the Rosewater and the Suger and mingle it with your meats. If ye have any Orrenges or Lemmans you must take two of them, and take the pilles very thin and mince them very smalle, and put them in a pound of currans, six dates, half a pound of prunes. Laye Currans and Dates upon the top of your meate. You must take two or three Pomewaters or Wardens and mince with your meate...; if you will make good crust put in three or foure yolkes of egges, a little Rosewater, and a good deale of Suger. Now, I dunno about y'all, but that looks to make into one humunguous pie. Here's how I would do it. 1 lb. of cooked red meat (doesn't really matter what kind) 1/2 lb. suet Mince these up real small (rough grind if you've got a grinder) 1/2 tsp. cinnamon 1/4 tsp. pepper 1/2 tsp. salt (if you wish) Mix this in with your ground meat. 2 hard-boiled egg yolks 2 Tbsp. rosewater 2 Tbsp. sugar Mash these together, then mix it in with the meat Finely minced peel of 1/2 of a lemon (or orange) 8 prunes, finely minced 2 c. minced apple or pear Mix this in with the meat Put the resulting mixture into a pre-baked pie crust. Mince 1/4 c. of currants and 3 dates, then scatter across the top of the mixture. Top with a crust if you wish, or simply cover the pie with tinfoil. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes if using a top crust, or 35 minutes covered with foil, then 10 minutes uncovered. Serve hot. I remember my Grandmother's first taste of a Dromedary mix mince pie. She was heard to complain bitterly that it wasn't mincemeat, it was mince fruit, and how dare they lie to her on the box. ;-) Wolfmother Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2000 09:48:30 -0400 From: "Jeff Gedney" Subject: Re: SC -Mus, Brei and confusion Adamantius (long may he wave) did write: > Oh, definitely! A terrine, though, is generally made from raw meat, > etc., packed into an earthenware pot/mold, and baked, while a mortrews > is, as far as I know, invariably made from minced, and pounded, > previously cooked meat, then thickened with bread or other starchy > stuff. Heiatt has a Caudon of Beef in an "Ordinance of Pottage", which reads as a minced beef mixture, which is molded, and cooked in a "Coffin". > As for the idea of mortrews being molded, it's a nice idea, and > makes sense, but how much evidence do you really have for this actually > being done? It occurs to me that unless you have a recipe or a specific > reference to mortrews in connection with molds, a feast description, or > some such (which you may actually have, for all I know), it would be > hard to make that strong a case for it. Of course it's still perfectly > viable as speculation. My personal theory is that they used Prebaked molded shells of Coffin dough as baking dishes. Then the Dough could be broken off and given to the staff, or given out with the crusts to the poor. Certainly a number of forcemeat type recipes seem to be placed in coffins but dont otherwise read like pie recipes. I think that it is likely that they used coffin dough a lot like we sometimes bake with aluminum foil today, as a disposible dish or dish liner to aid cleanup. FWIW, a hard coffin shell, infused with meat juices, egg, and fat would be dandy dog fare, and I think a thrifty household would find a way use them, without waste. brandu Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 22:28:39 -0400 From: Elaine Koogler Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period mincemeat... To: Cooks within the SCA Kathleen A Roberts wrote: > anyone have a recipe? preferably without citron (personal dislike, > YMMV). > > i do an erzats modern one with beef, suet, raisins, fresh and dried > apples, sweet spices, honey, red wine, orange peel and some whisky. > might this be close? > > cailte I seem to recall searching for a period mincemeat recipe some years back with a notable lack of success. I just went to a couple of sources and found the following: From the Harleian Manuscript, #279, cited in Lorna Sass' "Christmas Feasts": She indicates that this is probably the predecessor of the more modern mincemeat pie: Take butys of Vele, & mynce hem smal, or Porke, & put on a potte; take Wyne, & caste thereto pouder of Gyngere, Pepir, & Safroun & Salt, & a lytle verthous [verjuice], & do hem in a cofyn [pie crust] with yolkys of Eyroun [eggs], & kutte Datys & Roysonys of Couraunce [currants], Cloyws, Maces, & then ceuere thin cofyn & lat it bake tyl it be y-now [done]. There are three "minced pye" recipes in Kenelm Digby (1669), "My Lady of Portland's Minced Pyes", "Another way of making excellent Minced Pyes of my Lady Portlands" and "Minced Pyes", which is from Lady Lasson. All three of these contain citron, so I have not entered them here. You might want to check out a copy of the book and look at them for yourself. They all look very good. And I suspect you could probably omit the citron, though many would argue that it would no longer be a period recipe....but we don't want to get into that argument at this point. These all are what we know as minced meat...containing most, if not all, of the traditional ingredients. Kiri Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 09:05:48 -0400 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" Subject: [Sca-cooks] "A minced pie" from Gervase Markham To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Somebody asked for period mincemeat recipes; it's taken me this long to lay hands on Markham's "The English House-Wife", but I've used this recipe with some success. It's argued that its publication date is post-period (1615), and it is, but Markham spent the last years of his life being prosecuted for plagiarizing his own work (at a time when publishers essentially bought a book from the author, leaving them no further rights). It's extremely likely, although not proven or certain, that this dish, or something functionally identical to it, was cooked prior to December 31st, 1600. From that, take such consolation as you're inclined to ;-). "A minced pie. Take a leg of mutton, and cut the best of the flesh from the bone, and parboil it well: then put to it three pound of the best mutton suet, and shred it very small: then spread it abroad, and season it with pepper and salt, cloves and mace: then put in good store of currants, great raisins, and prunes clean washed and picked, a few dates sliced, and some orange peels sliced, then, being all well mixed together, put it into a coffin, or into divers coffins, and so bake them: and when they are served up open the lids, and strew store of sugar on top of the meat, and upon the lid. And in this sort you may also bake beef or veal: only the beef would not be parboiled, and the veal will ask a double quantity of suet." --Gervase Markham, "The English Housewife", Michael R. Best edition I've always thought of this as kind of a sausage meat, with somewhere between 10 and 30 percent fat in total weight, and the fruit substituting for some of the lean muscle meat. 30 percent fat actually turns out to be too high, and the resulting grease is pretty unattractive and, in this era of central heating, both unnecessary and dangerous for most people. I've done this recipe with three pounds of beef suet, shredded with about six pounds of lean meat (I used beef chuck -- actually, both the meat and the fat were coarsely "chili" ground), and an amount of fruit about equal to the total meat and fat. I'd have to find out how much meat to expect from a leg of mutton to get the actual fat percentage, or at least something close to it. Adamantius Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 10:32:22 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period mincemeat... To: Cooks within the SCA Elaine Koogler wrote: > I seem to recall searching for a period mincemeat recipe some years > back with a notable lack of success. snipped > There are three "minced pye" recipes in Kenelm Digby (1669), "My Lady > of Portland's Minced Pyes", "snipped > Kiri There's a good section on these in Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery. Hess goes into a number of the recipes and explains them. Johnnae Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 08:16:45 -0700 (PDT) From: R J Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] "A minced pie" from Gervase Markham To: Cooks within the SCA --- Kathleen A Roberts wrote: > way cool. thank you so much... though i think i > will stick with beef. ;) > > cailte Please try it with the mutton once. The spices cited in these recipes tend to take the flavor of the base meat into account, and recipes meant for mutton taste pretty off when made with anything less strong than that. I admit to a deep fondness for mutton and goat, but also submit that when cajoled into trying it, people really seem to like my mutton dishes ( judging by the cleaned off platters ). If you do decide to use beef after all, which is perfectly reasonable, please do the "sausage test" as you add the seasonings, to make sure you dont overwhelm the meat. AEsa/RJ Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 12:52:40 -0400 From: DeeWolff at aol.com Subject: [Sca-cooks] "A minced pie" from Gervase Markham To: SCA-Cooks at ansteorra.org > writes: >> If you do decide to use beef after all, which is >> perfectly reasonable, please do the "sausage test" as >> you add the seasonings, to make sure you dont >> overwhelm the meat. >> >> Enjoy, >> >> AEsa/RJ I have made it with both. Temper the cloves and it will be fine. We had this on Thanksgiving last year, made with beef. Andrea Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:11:55 -0500 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: [Sca-cooks] Mincemeat To: grizly at mindspring.com, Cooks within the SCA *There's a connection with mincemeat and the pies of the 16^th century that contained minced meats. You might start with Ivan Day's page: http://www.historicfood.com/Pie%20recipe2.htm * He has a number of recipes posted. ** *See below: * *The Good Housewife's Jewell **(*England, 1596) Chef Phains - Free Cookbooks To make bake meates. Take a legge of Lambe, and cut out all the fleshe, and save the skynne whole, then mince it fine and white with it, then put in grated bread, and some egges white and all, and some Dates and Currantes, then season it with some Pepper, Cynamon Ginger, and some Nutmegges and Carrawaies, and a little creame, and temper it altogether, then put it into the legge of the Lambe againe, and let it bake a little before you put it into your Pye, then put in a little of the Pudding about it, and when it is almost baked, then put in verjuce, suger and sweet butter, and so serve it. An other bake meate. Take two pounde of White and a little veale, and mince it together, then take a little peniriall, saverie and margerum, and unset Leekes, and chop them fine, and put in some egges and some creame, then stirre it all well together, and season it with pepper, nutmegs and salt, then put it into the pye, and cut the lid, and let it bake till it be dry, then serve it. *A NEVV BOOKE of Cookerie *(England, 1615) Thomas Gloning's website A fierced Pudding. MJnce a Legge of Mutton, with sweet Hearbes: searce grated Bread through a Collinder, mince Dates, Currens, Razins of the Sunne being stoned, a little Oringado, cut finely, or a preserued Lemmon, a little Coriander seeds, Nutmeg, Ginger, and Pepper: mingle all together with Milke, and Egges, raw wrought together like Paste: wrap the meate in a caull of Mutton, or of Ueale, and so you may eyther boyle or bake them. Jf you bake them, beat the yolke of an Egge with Rosewater, Sugar, and Sinamon. And when it is almost bakte draw it out, and sticke it with Sinamon and Rosemary. See also: http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2005/12/goodly-litter-of-cupboard.html http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/12/vintage-christmas-recipes.html has the *1588: Minst Pyes, with rosewater.** * /From: The good hous-wiues treasurie Beeing a verye necessarie booke instructing to the dressing of meates; Anon. 1588/ *To make minst Pyes.* Take your Veale and perboyle it a little, or mutton, then set it a cooling; and when it is colde, take three pound of suit [suet] to a leg of mutton, or fower [four] pound to a fillet of Veale, and then mince them small by themselves, or together whether you will, then take to season them halfe an once [ounce] of Nutmegs, half an once of cloves and Mace, halfe an once of Sinamon, a little Pepper, as much Salt as you think will season them, either to the mutton or to the Veale, take viii [8] yolkes of Egges when they be hard, half a pinte of rosewater full measure, halfe an pund of Suger, then straine the Yolkes with the rosewayer and the Suger and mingle it with your meate, if ye have any Orenges or Lemmans you must take two of them, and take the pilles [peels] very thin and mince them very smalle, and put them in a pound of currans, six dates, half a pound of prunes laye Currans and Dates upon the top of your meate, you must taek tow or three Pomewaters or Wardens and mince with your meate, you maye make them woorsse [?] if you will, if you will make good crust put in three or foure yolkes of egges a litle Rosewater, and a good deale of suger. Ivan Day has a latter recipe posted at: http://www.historicfood.com/Harewood%20Christmas.htm And of course Wikipedia?s entry is wrong as it was common in Illinois farm families to include meat in the mincemeat well into the later half of the 20^th century. This may have to do with butchering in the fall and having scraps of meat on hand that were cooked and added as the mincemeat was being made and canned. And my family recipes for fruitcakes even included mincemeat in the fruitcake, so the fruitcakes also included real meat. Johnnae llyn Lewis Nick Sasso wrote: > I have just looked at the mincemeat entry on our old pal "Wikipedia.org" > and nearly passed Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:43:41 +1200 From: Antonia Calvo Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Fruit and Meat To: Cooks within the SCA Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote: <<< Some of this may be true. Can anyone give me a "dessert" dish that *does* contain meat? The only one I could think of is mincemeat pie, but I also believe mincemeat pie doesn't actually contain any meat. >>> It used to; there are several extant 17th (and, I think, 16th) century recipes calling for beef or veal, plus suet. The filling is essentially a sausage mixture with lots of fruit mixed in. -------- There are 15th/16th recipes calling for both meat and dried fruit as a pie filling. There are _still_ recipes out there for mincemeat made with meat. I think there's one in the Fanny Farmer cookbook. -- Antonia di Benedetto Calvo Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:49:21 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Fruit and Meat To: Cooks within the SCA The traditional recipe in my family contains real meat in the mincemeat. One puts up the mincemeat, lets it age and then one makes the traditional dark fruitcakes in part with the homemade mincemeat. One then lets the cakes age for a suitable period of time, while soaking them every once in awhile in brandy or whisky. So that answers the question about there being a dessert dish that contains meat! As for Mince meat recipes and mentions- part of the problem lies on the spelling of the terms. Mince or minst or minse, etc. After some searching here are some mentions in chronological order from OED *1573* C. HOLLYBAND /French Schoole-maister/ 94 O Lorde, he hath supped up all the brothe of this mince pie. *1578* Lyte /Dodoens/ i. ciii. 146 Chopte or minsed meate. *1585* T. Washington tr. /Nicholay's Voy/ iii. xi. 90 b, Pies of minced meate, and rice. *1604* T. DEKKER /News from Graves-end/ Ep. Ded. sig B3, Ten thousand in London swore to feast their neighbors with nothing but plum-porredge, and mince-pyes all Christmas. *1626* Bacon /Sylva/ /enticons/sect.gif46 With a good strong Chopping-knife, mince the two Capons..as small as ordinary Minced Meat. *1630* /Tincker of Turvey/ 23 If his wife puts but two fingers daintily into a dish of mince-meat, he sweares she makes hornes at him. *1662* S. PEPYS /Diary/ 6 Jan. (1970) III. 4 We have, besides a good chine of beef and other good cheer, eighteen mince-pies in a dish, the number of the years that he hath been married. *1673* T. SHADWELL /Epsom-Wells/ IV, in /Wks./ (1720) II. 247 For currants to make mince-pyes with. [OED doesn't list it but there's also this mention too. Frilingotti,a kinde of daintie chewet or mincedpie. John Florio A vvorlde of wordes, 1598] Recipe wise To bake a Connie, Veale, or Mutton. TAke a Conny and perboile it almoste enough, then mince the flesh of it verie fine, and take with it three yolkes of hard egges, and mince with it, then lay another Conny in your Pie being perboiled, and your minced meat with it, being seasoned with Cloues, Mace, Ginger, Saffron Pepper & Salt, with two dishes of sw?ete butter mixed with it, lay vpon your Con|nie Barberies Gooseberies, or grapes, or the smal raisons, and so bake it. Thomas Dawson The second part of the good hus-wiues iewell. 1597 ------- A minc't pie. Take a Legge of Mutton, and cut the best of the flesh from the bone, and parboyle it well: then put to it three pound of the best Mutton suet, and shred it very small: then spread it abroad, and season it with Pepper and Salt, Cloues and Mace: then put in good store of Currants, great Raisins and Prunes cleane washt and pickt, a few Dates slic't, and some Orenge pills slic't: then being all well mixt together, put it into a coffin, or into diuers coffins, and so bake them: and when they are serued vp open the liddes, and strow store of Sugar on the top of the meate, and vpon the lid. And in this sort you may also bake Beefe or Veale; onely the Beefe would not bee parboyld, and the Veale will aske a double quantity of Suet. Markham, Gervase. The English house-vvife. 1631 ---------- There's a long association of the pies with Christmas. In his 'Ceremonies for Christmasse" the poet Robert Herrick wrote: Drink now the strong Beere, Cut the white loafe here, The while the meat is a shredding; For the rare Mince-Pie And the Plums stand by To fill the Paste that's a kneading. This was published in 1648 in his collection titled Hesperides. Last but not least Ivan Day has a selection of recipes for mince pies on website under the heading Bake Metes and Mince Pies. See http://www.historicfood.com/Pie%20recipe2.htm Johnnae On Aug 13, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote: Some of this may be true. Can anyone give me a "dessert" dish that *does* contain meat? He answered-- The only one I could think of is mincemeat pie, but I also believe mincemeat pie doesn't actually contain any meat. Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote: It used to; there are several extant 17th (and, I think, 16th) century recipes calling for beef or veal, plus suet. The filling is essentially a sausage mixture with lots of fruit mixed in. Many modern recipes still call for the suet, though. There's also suet in quite a few English steamed, boiled and baked puddings that are sweet and eaten as desserts. Adamantius Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:11:06 -0800 (PST) From: Honour Horne-Jaruk To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Battlefield Bakery Cookbook Respected friends: I have just run across this reference to a supposedly very modern-type mincemeat pie. " In the 1588 Good Hous-Wiues Treasurie by Edward Allde, meats were still cut up to be eaten with a spoon and combined with fruits and heavy spices. Typical was his recipe for Minst Pye which used practically the same ingredients that go into a modern mince pie." Does anyone know this recipe? Is it even close, or have things gotten lost in translation again? Yours in service to both the Societies of which I am a member- (Friend) Honour Horne-Jaruk, R.S.F. Alizaundre de Brebeuf, C.O.L. S.C.A.- AKA Una the wisewoman, or That Pict Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:34:52 -0800 (PST) From: Euriol of Lothian To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Battlefield Bakery Cookbook I've been trying to get a copy of this book myself. The one link I have for it, doesn't seem to work. However, it does appear to be available through some Universities that have subscribed to Early English Books Online. I did find an article at http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006_12_01_archive.html which has the following recipe: 1588: Minst Pyes, with rosewater. From: The good hous-wiues treasurie Beeing a verye necessarie booke instructing to the dressing of meates; Anon. 1588 To make minst Pyes. Take your Veale and perboyle it a little, or mutton, then set it a cooling; and when it is colde, take three pound of suit [suet] to a leg of mutton, or fower [four] pound to a fillet of Veale, and then mince them small by themselves, or together whether you will, then take to season them halfe an once [ounce] of Nutmegs, half an once of cloves and Mace, halfe an once of Sinamon, a little Pepper, as much Salt as you think will season them, either to the mutton or to the Veale, take viii [8] yolkes of Egges when they be hard, half a pinte of rosewater full measure, halfe an pund of Suger, then straine the Yolkes with the rosewayer and the Suger and mingle it with your meate, if ye have any Orenges or Lemmans you must take two of them, and take the pilles [peels] very thin and mince them very smalle, and put them in a pound of currans, six dates, half a pound of prunes laye Currans and Dates upon the top of your meate, you must taek tow or three Pomewaters or Wardens and mince with your meate, you maye make them woorsse [?] if you will, if you will make good crust put in three or foure yolkes of egges a litle Rosewater, and a good deale of suger. Euriol Edited by Mark S. Harris mincemeat-pie-msg Page 11 of 12