Mincemeat: It's what's for (Christmas) Dinner

 

 

As fruit pies, mince pie is a culinary holiday tradition that inspires more skepticism than enthusiasm among most Americans today. This traditional dish of meat (usually beef or game), tallow (animal fat from the back of meatloaf), cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, fruit, sugar and brandy or rum over all cooked together in a shell mass, has a history almost as tasty as their long list of ingredients.

Although there is no definitive explanation of how mince pie has become a holiday tradition, it seems more likely that its association with Christmas is linked to the trinity spices: cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Minced meat origin in the 13th century when the Crusaders returning to Europe brought these three exotic ingredients including spices, with them in the Holy Land. Due to insufficient cooling at the time, spices were a welcome families for conservation combined with fruit and meat for their protein last longer. Geographical origins of the Holy Land, spices lent a religious connotation, but when the church began to teach the three spices in a dish popular gifts also meant the Magi Magi to the infant Jesus, mince pies seem to be an imperative tradition Christmas.

English settlers brought the American pie recipe thin, but because resentment Puritan decadent dessert, it took a while for clothing trend. In the mid-17th century, Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas in England, because of their extravagant parties and presumed greedy. Puritan settlers in the New World held the opposition to them, but as puritanical ideologies declined, the popularity of ground meat dish as each year has increased in American homes. As the market revolution took hold, home treatment transition pies for a rare commodity in commercial bakeries 19th century A writer for The New York Times described an encounter with a Cartwright cake on Christmas Eve 1871 in which truck filled with hundreds of cakes, requires two horses to drive, because it gave delight to customers.

While this may seem a loved one, harmless dessert, pastry actually caused a surprising amount of controversy. At that time, many people have expressed concern about indigestion and its effect on the mental states of individuals; Tartlets with its rich mix of meat, sugar and spices, were a common cause. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were a series of crimes attributed to, of all things, meat pies. In 1907, a Chicago resident allegedly shot his wife in the head after sleeping in a sink full stomach and wake of a violent dream. Another case in Indiana in 1918, was a prison guard, who was fired in prison after eating a hamburger meal pie.

Indigestion caused was not the only concern people had on pies and their effects on human behavior. The temperance movement supporters also expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of alcohol in meat pies, preached against their consumption. Ground meat would have their day in court, however. With the amendment to ban 18 on alcohol, many people believed that there should be exceptions for the good of the culinary arts. In October 1922, the Old Distillery victory in Chicago brought this appeal to the court, asking if alcohol to cook, taking advantage of the upcoming holidays, highlighting some festive joy in his argument: pies. They won.

And what happened over a century which made short work of a frequent presence in our Christmas dinner tables? Prohibit due to its popularity decline? People fear that their digestive dangerous consequences? A likely argument is that, as the production of cakes moved to the house of the local bakery in the factory, ground beef disappearance is a "mystery" questionable food, which makes people have the same scruples eat. Charles Dickens even joked in The Pickwick Papers in a baker who makes pies with kittens.

President William Howard Taft, however, was a fan of pies. Thanksgiving in 1909, bakers of New York President Taft presented with a mince pie weighs a staggering £ 50 Taft had ordered its military aid, Captain Archibald Butt offices assist in the cake consumption; Captain Butt led reinforcements and ordered his team to help eat healthy food.