Historical food has been one of my weird interests for a while. It’s such an important part of life, speaking not only to what people ate, but also what resources were available to them, how much and what types of trading they did (or not), and how their beliefs affected what they ate.

The subject has become more mainstream in recent years, with books and cooking shows delving into historical recipes, and in a lot of cases, creating the recipe from scratch, because written recipes were rare until fairly recently.

Realistic food can be a boon and a bane to authors. Readers will look askance if your knight in shining armor snacks on an ordinary fried tomato, and they’ll look even more askance if your gentry sits down to breakfast and there’s fried organ meats on the table.

There are a few foods that are nearly universal. Every culture since the Agricultural Revolution has a version of grain porridge, bread is eaten just about everywhere, and meat wrapped in dough (dumplings, pasties, sausage rolls, Beef Wellington) is a perennial favorite all over the world. The types of meat and grain vary; the principle is the same.

Today, since it’s nearly Christmas, I present to you a variation on the ‘meat wrapped in dough’ principle: the mincemeat pie, historically known as a mince pie.

Mincemeat pie was one of the first foods that I ‘studied’, initially as it was going from plate to fork to mouth. As a kid, I only knew about sweet fruit-based mincemeat that comes in jars, and it was a treat only eaten at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now that I can cook for myself, I’ve gone back to the older, meat-based type of mincemeat, and eat it whenever I need to rotate my canned food storage (I use canned beef; see below for the recipe) or whenever I feel like it.

Nowadays, meat pies are fairly rare, except for chicken pot pie. Before refrigeration, they were a good way to reuse cooked meat and keep it edible for another day or two. We, as a culture, have moved on from pies as a necessity. We have fridges, and we have casseroles, which are essentially pie filling in a dish without a crust. Casseroles are easy in a civilization that includes tempered glass and cheap, easy-to-clean dishes, but before those technological improvements arrived, cooks had to make their own casserole dish: a pie crust. Really old recipes instruct the cook to make a crust that wasn’t meant to be eaten (by humans; the leftover crust was given to the pigs). So the edible pie crust is only a few hundred years old; before then, only the filling was eaten unless the diners were starving or didn’t care what the neighbors thought.

The original mincemeat pie contained whatever the cook put in it, and usually included mostly leftover pork or beef; a lesser amount of apple, onion, and dried fruit; and a teeny amount of very expensive sweetener and spices. It was a seasonal dish, made when fresh meat was available, and usually eaten by the wealthier class of farmer or townsman, who would have access to all the ingredients.

Fruit-based mincemeat started to take off in the 1800s and became really popular in the Victorian Era (or really well-publicized; sometimes it’s hard to tell). Instead of basing the recipe around leftover meat and eating the result for dinner, it became almost entirely comprised of apples and raisins. Spices became more central to the dish as prices fell and importation became easier, and alcohol gave it a celebratory air. By 1900, it was almost exclusively a dessert eaten at Christmas.

But mincemeat is infinitely adaptable in a modern society with access to out-of-season foods. You don’t like beef? Use pork. I recommend a shoulder butt roast or the like- something you can shred. You like beef but shudder at the price of a mere chuck roast and your wallet screams at the thought of anything more expensive? Use hamburger. The higher-fat blends are perfect for this. Venison might also be good, for the hunters in the audience, though you’d have to add extra fat to keep it from drying out. You can vary the spices and their proportions; salt and brown sugar are, in my opinion, the only required spices. My next attempt at this will probably include baharat, garam masala, or tandoori spices. A lot of recipes include alcohol such as brandy or rum; you can add to taste or leave it out altogether. Swap out some of the raisins for dried currants, cherries, or other berries. The possibilities are endless.

Here is a recipe for old-fashioned mincemeat that I made last night. Be warned, it makes a lot- about enough for two eight-inch pies, or one nine-inch pie and a strange little quiche-like thing I made by accident (I was trying to make a low-carb pastry with eggs and cheese, and it didn’t come out quite like I’d hoped):

• pastry for two-crust pie
• 1 can cooked shredded beef (about 2 cups), drained
• 2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• ½ cup raisins
• ½ cup golden raisins
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp black pepper
• ½ tsp allspice
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• 2 tbsp butter

(Note: all quantities of ingredients from the raisins onward are estimates. I was in a hurry, and as I said above, it’s an adaptable recipe)

Method:

Preheat oven to 425.

Line a pie pan with half the crust.

Combine all other ingredients except the butter in a large bowl and mix well, tasting and seasoning as you go.

Pile the filling into the pie pan and dot with butter.

Cover with top crust, crimp, and cut a slit in the center to allow steam to escape.

Place the pan into the oven (I put mine in a cookie sheet to catch any overflow of melted butter) and bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for 40 minutes more, or until the crust is golden and flaky.

Remove and allow to cool before cutting.

There you have it: the amazing, adaptable mincemeat pie. Leftover filling can be used for another pie, mixed with egg and baked to form a slightly sweet breakfast dish, or eaten as is, as long as you used cooked beef and don’t mind the texture of raw onions. It can also be canned and processed in a pressure canner. I’ve never tried freezing the filling for later use; one of you should try it and let me know in the comments whether it worked.

May your holidays be full of fun and good food. Merry Christmas!