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Mince meat, fruit cake and figgy pudding

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I love good home made mincemeat. I've yet to get any store bought that was any good. My grammie made it awesome, both real, with meat, and faux with just the apples, raisins, and fat. Right after her passing i discovered that a friend's wife made it just as good (except the pie crust) with venison. Hers tasted so close to my grammie's that I got teary eyed having just lost Gram. Grammie would also make it into "squares" which were just a sheet of pie crust on a baking sheet, mincemeat spread on that, then another sheet of crust on top and the edges crimped, baked and cut into squares. Generally I don't like fruitcake and I can't say I've had the opportunity to try figgy pudding.
 
That time of year
I have noted people who like one like all three, them that don’t like one doesn’t like them all.
Who eats these?

From The Lady's Assistant for Regulating and Supplying the Table, by Charlotte Mason 1787

MINCE PIE NO MEAT.JPG


IF you make this, use medium sized eggs
A "gill" of brandy, pronounced "Jill" is modern half-cup aka four ounces
"mountain" in this recipe is "mountain wine" aka raisin wine


MINCE PIE WITH MEAT A.JPG


So omit the tongue and use a different cut of beef, as a tongue should be smoked and then made into sandwiches...
The suet is beef suet from the fat around the beef kidneys. NO OTHER fat will work other than suet...




PLUM PUDDING BOILED.JPG


So ALL boiled puddings are placed into a pudding cloth, which is a 30" x 30" linen cloth, rubbed with butter, and then floured, before the pudding dough is placed in the middle. The cloth is closed up around the pudding dough, and tied closed with a piece of twine. NO PART of the pudding should be exposed to the outside. This is then boiled for the specified time in water. When done it is gently opened and dished, and served with hard sauce. To make a figgy pudding, swap figs for plums in this recipe.

I'm not partial to fruitcake and this cookbook had no such recipe. I like "blonde" fruit cake, but that's a modern invention. I do NOT favor "black cake" which is a very heavily rummed fruitcake popular in the South American nation of Guyana, which was once British Guyana, and where my wife was born.

LD
 
I like fruit cake. The fresh stuff not the ones passed around between family or friends every year. But I haven’t liked the mincemeat pies I have tried. I don’t remember having figgy pudding. So I can’t say about it.
 
Nada to any of those for this boy. Give me pumpkin pie, apple and peach pie and or cobbler!!! P.s. don't forget cherry. Around here in southern Indiana persimmon pudding is a traditional favorite (deer like them too) 😁😋😋😋
Around here they grow on defunct farmland that has become public hunting lands. The folks these days don't know what they are. The farmers here back-in-the-day planted persimmons or crab apples to have the pectin for preserves. We don't try to use them until after the first frost. Persimmon biscuits (aka cookies) are pretty tasty.

The The Lady's Assistant for Regulating and Supplying The Table 1787 is a pretty good cook book as cook books go for pre 1800 time frame. For folks looking for different dishes, that would also be historic, take a gander at this book.

LD
 
Around here they grow on defunct farmland that has become public hunting lands. The folks these days don't know what they are. The farmers here back-in-the-day planted persimmons or crab apples to have the pectin for preserves. We don't try to use them until after the first frost. Persimmon biscuits (aka cookies) are pretty tasty.

The The Lady's Assistant for Regulating and Supplying The Table 1787 is a pretty good cook book as cook books go for pre 1800 time frame. For folks looking for different dishes, that would also be historic, take a gander at this book.

LD
Sure will thank you for the information😁
 
Been years since I’ve done it, but I would make fruitcake in February and rum it every week or so till Christmas
Alas before I got married.
To be polite my wife took a few bite on our first Christmas and smiled.
But come February she told me she didn’t really like it
So now I but a little one, but it’s not the same
 
My sister, departed 7 years ago at 74 years of age had made a fruitcake a year or so before her death. It was a big one as she was a baker by trade. The cake was 15 inches around and 8 inches tall. I believe it was 3 layers but now is one. The nephews and family use it every Christmas.

A peice big enough for all present is cut from it. The rest is then covered in Dark 151 proof rum as when it was made. A small piece is all one needs to remember her every season.
 
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