“_Made any other way it’s not mince-pie._”
My favorite dish, and the best food in the world, is King Canute
Pudding, but I shall not tell anybody how to make it, because that is
a family secret. I am descended from Canute, and this was the pudding
he ate and which made him feel so good that he went out and bade the
tide to cease rising. The recipe is handed down in each generation of
my tribe. It was my paternal grandmother who had it to pass on. She
lived to be ninety-nine, thanks to her own wonderful cooking and a
cantankerous disposition. Her mince-pie was a thing to write sonnets
about. It was the second best food in the world. For ten years after I
went to New York I lived on the memory of that pie and shuddered at the
horrendous messes masquerading under the same name which were offered
to me.
Then I moved back to New England and achieved a cook who, by the grace
of God and the right bringing up could make a pie like it. For six
years I knew happiness again. Then we lost Kate, the incomparable. My
only hope was my wife and that was a feeble hope, indeed. She was born
not in the pie belt, but in New York. She had never cooked. She was an
Episcopalian. I approached the next Thanksgiving breakfast with gloomy
forebodings.
But lo, a miracle. It was an orthodox mince-pie. It was Katie’s
mince-pie. It was grandmother’s mince-pie—in short, it was mince-pie.
Here is the way to make it. Made any other way it’s not mince-pie.
_The Filling_
Affix the grinder firmly to the edge of the table. What the palette is
to the artist so is the grinder to the creator of mince meat. Then pass
the following ingredients through the grinder, and from thence into a
large kettle and let the latter and its glorious contents simmer on the
stove for the best part of a morning, stirring them frequently so that
no portion shall be neglected and fail to come into close union with
the soothing heat that mellows all into one fragrant whole. Take from
the stove and store in stone crocks or glass jars in the dark, and keep
tightly covered. When about to fashion a pie take out as much of the
meat as you desire, wet it with boiled cider and with fresh cider, too,
if possible, so that it is not stiff, and bake between the crusts whose
ingredients are given below. Eat hot with soft dairy cheese and coffee.
The meat should be thoroughly boiled the day before the mince meat is
made, and the cider should be boiled down at home—not bought—until it
is the consistency of molasses. Boil enough to last all winter and put
in glass jars. Now, alas, that no liquors may be had, it is well to
bottle fresh cider and put it away where it is cool, so that with luck
it may still be fresh when in March you scrape the last jar for the
last pie. Only use care when it is opened, or perchance it will be the
ceiling rather than the pie which will be wet down.
5 cups cooked beef; after grinding
2½ cups suet
7½ cups apples
3 cups cider
½ cup vinegar
1 cup molasses
5 cups sugar
¾ pound citron
2½ pounds raisins
1½ pounds small raisins (not to be put through grinder)
salt to taste
juice and rind of 2 lemons
juice and rind of 2 oranges
1 tablespoon mace and nutmeg (or 2 nutmegs grated)
2 tablespoons each of cinnamon, cloves and allspice
2 tablespoons lemon extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
3 cups liquor in which beef was cooked
If you have wine or brandy put in a cupful after taking from the fire.
_The Crust_
2 cups pastry flour sifted with teaspoon salt.
½ cup (generous) of lard mixed in with fingertips till
the combination is fine and powdery.
Wet with cold water, mixing with knife, and cutting, till
you can take the dough from the bowl without sticking to
it. Divide in half, pat gently on floured marble slab, and
roll out thin. Lift lower crust carefully, place in tin and
trim off edges. Roll out from trimmings a strip half an inch
wide and place on top of lower crust, around edge, first
wetting edge slightly with cold water. Put in filling, place
upper crust on top, first wetting edge of rim slightly with
cold water, press together with tines of fork and trim off
overhanging of upper crust. Prick a large T. M. on the top
crust and bake in hot oven till brown.
(The T. M. stands for “’Tis Mince” to distinguish it from the pies
labeled T. M. for “’Tain’t Mince.”)