At the crossroads of sweet and savory...

[khromat]

Time for some Culinary Insanity! :D

Mincemeat is one of those odd Christmas traditions that dates back to the middle ages and while the general ingredients have changed little over the centuries, the proportions have. During the English Renaissance, the list of ingredients still had meat in it (mutton, to be precise) as well as suet, dried fruit

Comments

[chipuni]

Hrm...

If you don't mind it not being dried, my local Ranch 99 has fresh ginger available...

[tracerj]

I'm not sure I have an adequate expression for much I wish I could try that original mincemeat. Honestly, modern sweet mincemeat tastes more like Branston pickle, and if I wanted that, I know where to get it. (In fact, I frequently want Branston pickle, but not to fill a pie!)

[dingotush]

Really surprised to hear that you can't get suet. It's still pretty common in the UK ("Atora suet" if the shredded kind most commonly bought now). It's fairly commonly used not only in mincemeat but also in the pastry for mince pies - our "family" recipe has equal parts of suet (melted), butter, and margarine to make up the fat in the pastry. It's also regularly used in dumplings and virtually every traditional steamed pudding.

[anonymous]

Very interesting and neat to hear about.. I look forward to hearing the reports on the various mincemeats!

This is the sort of thing, by the way, that local newspapers eat up for their weekly/monthly 'food' sections. I encourage you to write the final results and submit this as an article!

[chefmongoose]

Er, that was me. Darn expiring login cookies. :P