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December 3rd, 2005
01:27 am - mincemeat, not minced meat
I think the highlight of today was the mince pies.
I'd bought a bag of half a dozen while getting a sandwich for lunch, and handed them round mid-afternoon. Most of my coworkers took one, but one of them turned them down on the grounds that she didn't like mince pies.
Fair enough.
She then commented, five minutes later, that she didn't understand how the rest of us could eat cold meat pies.
After a few cross-purpose exchanges, it turned out she'd always thought that mince pies contained genuine minced meat. Thus, savoury.
We explained otherwise. She tried a mince pie. She was converted.
And it's only the 2nd of December. Plenty of days left for her to eat them in!
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Prayer for a New Mother
The things she knew, let her forget again ---
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,
The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men
Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.
Let her have laughter with her little one;
Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing,
Grant her her right to whisper to her son
The foolish names one dare not call a king.
Keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd,
The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red,
The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud
That wraps the strange new body of the dead.
Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go
And boast his pretty words and ways, and plan
The proud and happy years that they shall know
Together, when her son is grown a man.
-- Dorothy Parker
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I'm baking a fruitcake with my mother tomorrow. Not quite the same as a mince pie, but in a nearby neighborhood. And capable of containing a great deal more alcohol, too. And how! I'm macerating the fruit just now, and I doubled the amount of rum in the recipe. When the parents get to eating in in a few weeks, they'll be in for a surprise! ![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/386297/289672) | | From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) malkin |
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| Date: | December 3rd, 2005 03:55 am (UTC) |
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Imagine the confusion down here in Australia, the first time I talked about making pumpkin pies. Pumpkin is eaten as a savory, here, and "pies" are usually small savory meat pies (unlikes in the US, where "pies" are usually big dessert pies). So, some folks were imagining small savory pies with butternut squash and veggies in them. (Which wouldn't be a half bad idea, if you could find some way to make them moist enough. Maybe some masala sauce. Yuuuum.) Heh. Here's your chance to be a pioneer! "Turning to the pie side" just doean't have quite the same ring to it. Nor does, "I am your chef, Luke!" Mince Pies = finely chopped meat and peppermint
Am I wrong? What *is* in them?
Too many raisins! (mincemeat is chopped up apples and raisins and spices and stuff) Well, for those people who dislike raisins, I can see they wouldn't be quite the thing . . . but for those who have no objection to them, mm, yearly treat! shiny_monkey is right; mincemeat, in this context, is a mixture of chopped up raisins and dried fruit and apples and alcohol and spices and stuff. no chopped up liver then... I don't know if I could enjoy that pie ;-) -- my idea of english food was formed by the weekend I had to live from cornish pasties and I swear they always had minced liver in there somewhere. Absolutely no chopped up liver. (twitches)
And in any case, this is something that really does only get sold around Christmas -- well, in quantity, anyhow. :) Thanks for the explanation! I've been terrified of mincemeat since I was a small child for the same misconception. I imagined them as being filled with something like coarsely ground hamburger (which, while I like hamburger just fine, doesn't sound like something you'd want to consume as dessert). I hope to someday be able to actually try a mincemeat pie. Glad to be able to remove that childhood trauma, then. ;) It's just chopped up raisins and dried fruit and apples and alcohol and spices and similar. Come visit some time! ![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/786649/253944) | | From: | diony |
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| Date: | December 6th, 2005 12:55 am (UTC) |
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I thought the same thing about mince pies until fairly recently, since my only real knowledge of them came from a Laura Ingalls Wilder book in which I am pretty sure they made mincemeat out of bits of the hogs during hog slaughtering season. But then, sweet meat pies with fruit in them sounds pretty good to me, so it was merely a lack of opportunity that kept me from eating them. And then I discovered this vegetarian mincemeat thing! And now, I hope, you are very happy! |
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