What Your Holiday Table Has Been Missing
What Your Holiday Table Has Been Missing
I HAVE JAMES BEARD’S mincemeat,” Jeanne Voltz, a food stylist, confided to me recently. Since producing a documentary about Mr. Beard, I’ve been approached with many tales about the gregarious authority on American cuisine. Some people like to chat about his recipes, and that’s what I thought Ms. Voltz was getting at. I glibly responded, “Aren’t his recipes great?”
“I don’t think you understand,” she pressed. “I have his mincemeat.” She explained that the batch she possessed had been made by Mr. Beard’s own gigantic hands: “He gave a large portion to my mother and she gave me half.”
Mr. Beard died in 1985, which means Ms. Voltz’s mincemeat is over three decades old. Six presidents have taken office during the lifespan of that mincemeat. It has thus far enjoyed a longer run than “Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway.
Ms. Voltz’s mother was a food editor and friend of Mr. Beard’s, and the Voltzes spent two Christmases at his Greenwich Village townhouse. On both occasions he served mince pies, which Ms. Voltz described as Cognac-drenched and fruit-forward, with “a remembrance of briskets past.”
Mr. Beard’s friend Clark Wolf, a food, restaurant and hospitality consultant, also spent holidays at the townhouse when mincemeat was served—and recalled how it caused him to recoil at first. “There was this American country crock sitting on the floor in the corner of the room,” he said. “Jim told me that it was mincemeat. I kind of knew what that was. I asked, ‘How long has it been there?’ He answered, ‘About nine years.’ ” Mr. Wolf found it unsettling, given that the mincemeat was not refrigerated. “But it was rich and unctuous and surprisingly good,” he confirmed. On subsequent visits, Mr. Wolf was present when Mr. Beard added liquor to the crock: “He would lift it up onto the counter and say, ‘It’s time to feed the crock!’ as if it were the plant from ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’ ”
Ms. Voltz continues to maintain her portion in a clamp-lid jar in her fridge, adding splashes of booze, dried fruit, and cooked apple or pear from time to time. In this way, she always has mincemeat ready for tart-making at the holidays, after which she tops up the crock once more. She shares her mincemeat tarts only with deserving guests. “I have some friends who turn up their noses at one bite,” she said. “Why would I waste Jim’s mincemeat on them?”
Traditional mincemeat contains meat (beef, venison or mutton), suet (a rich, firm beef fat), dried fruits and spices, preserved by copious booze. According to U.K.-based Lebanese cookbook author Salma Hage, “Mincemeat was brought to the U.K. in the Middle Ages, following the religious crusades in the Middle East, where nuts, fruits and spices would be mixed together and preserved to intensify the flavors.” Back then, the line between sweet and savory was less rigid; highly spiced dishes of meat and fruit were all the rage. Mince pie, as it’s known in Britain, has been associated with Christmas since the 1500s.
Vegetarian mincemeat.
Photo:
Christopher Testani for The Wall Street Journal, Food Styling by Heather Meldrom, Prop Styling by Carla Gonzalez-Hart
The recipe hopped the pond with colonists, but mincemeat has ebbed in popularity in the New World since the beginning of the 20th century. In a fascinating 2009 story for the Chicago Reader, the late journalist Cliff Doerksen reported that the pies fell out of favor due to a combination of temperance (too boozy), indigestibility (too rich), racism (via a psychoanalyst who claimed the pies somehow undermined white supremacy), suffragettes (backlash against laborious kitchen tasks) and wartime meat shortages.
It’s a shame, because the rich, spicy filling tastes like Christmas distilled. It can be made vegetarian, if you prefer. Using the recipe at right, you can bake it into pies in 15 minutes flat. And mincemeat makes a terrific gift: Bequeath jars to loved ones this year to go into pies next Christmas.
You don’t need to tell any of this to the Brits, who remain firmly, even fanatically committed to mincemeat. By some estimates, 370 million mince pies are sold each year—that’s more than five times the U.K. population—with millions more made in homes. They may be served with a dollop of custard or cream, or even a slice of cheese. Purists opt for nothing more than a snowy sprinkling of confectioners sugar and a dash of cinnamon on top. The crust may be sweet or savory and is more likely to come in the form of a mini pie than a full-size one.
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‘The rich, spicy filling tastes like Christmas distilled.’
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Perhaps mincemeat retained pride of place in Mr. Beard’s household because his mother hailed from England. In his memoir, “Delights and Prejudices,” he reminisced about preparing the recipe with her each year, when “great crocks were brought up from the cellar.” That version contained beef chuck and tongue, suet, dried fruit, spices, Cognac and Sherry, and was set to “mellow for weeks before being transferred to jars.” It was such an important ritual that when Mrs. Beard, ailing with typhoid, missed a year of making it, “she could hardly bear it,” Mr. Beard wrote.
Mr. Beard’s friend and assistant Caroline Stuart held on to the mincemeat he made for her until a few years ago, and she knows there are more portions out there. In fact, mincemeat was one of the last recipes Mr. Beard taught to his cooking students. Ms. Stuart shared with me the syllabus of his final class, dated December 3-7, 1984. There it was, alongside braised pheasant, boiled new potatoes, endive salad and Indian pudding.
Mr. Beard died six weeks later. But his legacy lives on through his writing, his recipes, the foundation that bears his name…and a few batches of mincemeat that bring holiday cheer, year after year after year.
Easiest-Ever Mini Mince Pies
TOTAL TIME: 15 minutes MAKES: 24-30 mini tarts
Unsalted butter
All-purpose flour
1 pound frozen puff pastry, thawed
2 cups mincemeat
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon water
Confectioners’ sugar
Ground cinnamon
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Use butter to grease 2-3 (12-cup) muffin tins.
2. On a lightly floured surface, roll out pastry to about 1 millimeter thick. Use a cookie or biscuit cutter to cut out 24-30 circles 3 inches in diameter, and an equal number 2 inches in diameter, rerolling pastry as needed. Gently press 3-inch pastry circles into muffin tins. Add 1 tablespoon mincemeat to each. Top with 2-inch circles, pinching edges to seal.
3. Beat egg with water. Brush tops of pies with egg wash.
4. Bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool, at least 10 minutes. Transfer pies from tins to a serving plate. Sift sugar over tarts and sprinkle with cinnamon.
—Adapted from Simon Gregory and Nicolas Houlbert of Bluebird, London and New York
James Beard's mincemeat.
Photo:
Christopher Testani for The Wall Street Journal, Food Styling by Heather Meldrom, Prop Styling by Carla Gonzalez-Hart
James Beard’s Mincemeat
“We used great crocks for mincemeat, and each year twice this amount was made for use the next year. It was not put in jars until it had aged and been treated to additional Cognac for about four months. However, the mincemeat is so good you don’t have to wait a year to enjoy it.”
—James Beard
TOTAL TIME: 3½ hours MAKES: about 5 pounds
3 pounds lean brisket or beef round
1 (3 pound) fresh beef tongue
1½ pounds finely chopped beef suet
2 pounds raisins
2 pounds golden raisins
2 pounds currants
½ pound finely diced citron
½ pound finely diced orange peel
½ pound chopped dried figs, dates or mixture of both
¼ pound diced finely diced lemon peel
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups strawberry preserves
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons nutmeg
2½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon mace
Dash of ground cloves
1 (750 ml) bottle Sherry, plus more as mixture chills
1 (750 ml) bottle Cognac, plus more as mixture chills
1. In a large stock pot, combine brisket and tongue. Cover with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until meats are tender, about 3 hours. Remove meat from water and allow to cool.
2. Once cool enough to handle, remove fat and skin from meat. Pass through the meat-grinder attachment of a stand mixer or chop finely.
3. In a 3-gallon lidded crock, combine chopped meat, suet and remaining ingredients, and mix thoroughly to combine. (The mixture should be loose.) Cover crock and transfer to refrigerator. Chill 1 month before serving or transferring to a sealed jar. Check each week to see if alcohol has been absorbed, and if mixture seems dry, add more Sherry and Cognac as necessary. Mincemeat will keep at least 1 year in a sealed jar in the refrigerator.
—Adapted from “Delights and Prejudices” by James Beard
Vegetarian Mincemeat
TOTAL TIME: 20 minutes MAKES: about 3 pounds
1 (200 gram) box shredded vegetable suet, such as Atora brand
1⅓ cups raisins
1⅓ cups currants
1⅓ cups golden raisins
1⅓ cups grated apple, preferably Braeburn
⅔ cup brown sugar
¾ cup finely chopped mixed citrus peels, such as orange, lemon or citron
4 pinches ground cinnamon
4 pinches ground nutmeg
4 cloves
Zest of 4 lemons
1 cup dark rum
1 cup brandy
1. In a 1 gallon lidded crock, combine all ingredients, and mix thoroughly to combine. Cover crock and transfer to refrigerator.
2. Chill about 3 months before serving or transferring to a sealed jar. Check each week to see if alcohol has been absorbed. If mixture seems dry, add more as necessary. Mincemeat will keep at least 1 year in a sealed jar in the refrigerator.
—Adapted from Simon Gregory and Nicolas Houlbert of Bluebird, London and New York
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