Working The Mince
The best part about visiting my grandmother during the autumn was watching the mincemeat grow. It would begin every year in a large glass container she kept in the corner of her refrigerator where she tended it its development for many months. That one glass jar would grow to three or four by the time Christmas arrived, enough to make the one hundred or so tarts that came out of the oven onto generously heaped platters for our holiday table.
We knew from experience that she started her mince as soon as the harvest was in, long before the first frost came to the cobbled streets of downtown Toronto, long before visions of sugar plums had begun to dance in our heads. The mittens weren't out, school has just begun and we had other things on our minds.
But not Nana. She believed that mincemeat, truly great mincemeat, needed plenty of time, like fine wine, to mature. She called it 'working the mince'.
Her recipie, a thick, rich mixture of fruits, currants and spices aged in a generous base of brandy came from the village of Norfolk, England during the days when produce was still being taken to market by horse and cart, when food was stored in earthen crockery in cool cellars. Moving along at a slower pace, mince, like life itself, was patiently anticipated for the promise of pleasure to come.
"Did you start the mincemeat yet, Nana?"
We had arrived as we so often did to sample her endless larder of cookies and baked goods served on a tea tray with Blue Willow china; proper cups and saucers and strong, hot Red Rose in a big English pot.
The mince, Nana, the mince!
"Ahh, the mince....well, now...."
If the time was right she would slyly open the door of her refrigerator and point out the big glass jar with a piece of cloth wrapped over the lid secured with a rubber band. Something dark, rich and syrupy bubbled inside when she shook it a little as if to wake it up.
"What goes into the mincemeat?" we would ask in a ritual tease.
"Never you mind!"
Whump! The door would snap shut, leaving the mysterious jar to work its magic in the darkeness next to the Cheese Whiz and Worchestershire Sauce.
As it always happened, sometime during our tea, Nana would spy some bit of leftover and announce it was going into the mince.
But that’s an apple peel! We would cry out. Surely not an apple peel? No one could ever remember seeing or tasting an apple peel in last year’s tarts. What else was she putting in there? Leftover bread crumbs? Egg shells? Sometimes while making lunch with bits and odds and sods of cuttings everywhere she would whip something off the counter and into the fridge so fast we had no idea what it was. When we heard the familiar snap of the rubber band we new it had been devoured by the mince.
“Nana, what was that?” we would cry out.
Nana would smile a little wickedly and shake her head.
“The secret to good mincemeat, my girls,” she would explain, cracking the tops off our soft-boiled eggs and cutting up little soldiers of toast, "is in the magic it works when you give it something it likes and then leave it alone to welcome it.”
We didn’t like the idea of the welcome, it seemed to us that whatever went in there was never seen again, at least not in its original form. Truly the elixir that emerged from those glass jars ready for the baking oven was spicy-sweet and flavorful, if somewhat indescribable. Indescribable being the operative word since our delicate child palates did not allow us to linger on thoughts of possible table scraps or other raw ingredients which may have been somewhat disreputable, caught on the fly as it were.
No, indeed, the mince tarts that Nana laid out every Christmas afternoon were pungently sweet and familiar, a generous dollop of the fruity mixture nestled to bake in a bed of flaky pastry and dusted with crunchy bits of sugar. They were pure perfection, down to the little lids cut especially to size so they looked like miniature pies. Two bites and the whole thing was gone, save for the bits of crumbly pastry that always stuck to the corners of your upper lip to be licked later.
Even more than the browning turkey and chestnut stuffing, or the entrance of the flaming plum pudding into a darkened and hushed room, the taste of a mince pie in one’s mouth brought back every memory of Christmases past, the sounds of children running underfoot, mothers and fathers gathered in the parlour amidst a murmuring sea of conversation, Santa’s grand entrance to the sound of sleigh bells with a big sack of presents to be distributed. Toys and books strewn everywhere.
The mingling of smells and noise, aromas pungent and familiar, like those of the mince tarts were best left undisturbed, lest too close an examination reveal the quarrels and the loss, the moments of disappointment on the bleak streets outside in the bitter cold. We steadfastly insulated ourselves from all of this on Christmas Day. Inside my grandmother’s crowded apartment the food and the love was abundant, the realities of living put aside for a few hours to celebrate what was good in our lives.
For that reason I came to understand that perhaps Nana was right about leaving the mystery in the mince. I was content to let her be the holder of the secret, just as she held the secret of who Santa really was until one Christmas my cousin Douglas pulled off his beard and discovered Grandpas’ face underneath. For many years we simply enjoyed the magic created by our family, a time of hobbits and fairies, elves and angels, talking animals and a universe that still allowed for a kindly old man who flew across the night sky every year bringing a toy to children to believed in him.
The secret of Nana’s mince disappeared with her in her 84th year. She taught me a great many things: how to make a perfect apple pie, stuff a turkey, pick a good horse in the 5th, swear with sound-alike words (“I said ship, dearie, not shit”) and why tea tastes better in a proper cup and saucer. And though she gave me precise lessons on how to pick the best apples for her autumn pies, she never told me and I could not bring myself to find out just exactly what went into that mince! And as far as I know she never passed it on to anyone, perhaps because her leaving took her as much by surprise as it did us.
But a few years later I began baking my own mince pies and I believe a little bit of Nana’s recipie must have survived because every year they taste more and more familiar.
The making of the mince has now become a yearly ritual in my household, marking the holidays and creating a new tradition or friends who share our Christmas table. Still rich and pungent, with a bit of crumbly crust to come off on the upper lip for licking later, they are made every year with a great deal of affection, in and for the memory of a woman who believed that all good things in life took time, improvisation, and a little magic.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE!
We knew from experience that she started her mince as soon as the harvest was in, long before the first frost came to the cobbled streets of downtown Toronto, long before visions of sugar plums had begun to dance in our heads. The mittens weren't out, school has just begun and we had other things on our minds.
But not Nana. She believed that mincemeat, truly great mincemeat, needed plenty of time, like fine wine, to mature. She called it 'working the mince'.
Her recipie, a thick, rich mixture of fruits, currants and spices aged in a generous base of brandy came from the village of Norfolk, England during the days when produce was still being taken to market by horse and cart, when food was stored in earthen crockery in cool cellars. Moving along at a slower pace, mince, like life itself, was patiently anticipated for the promise of pleasure to come.
"Did you start the mincemeat yet, Nana?"
We had arrived as we so often did to sample her endless larder of cookies and baked goods served on a tea tray with Blue Willow china; proper cups and saucers and strong, hot Red Rose in a big English pot.
The mince, Nana, the mince!
"Ahh, the mince....well, now...."
If the time was right she would slyly open the door of her refrigerator and point out the big glass jar with a piece of cloth wrapped over the lid secured with a rubber band. Something dark, rich and syrupy bubbled inside when she shook it a little as if to wake it up.
"What goes into the mincemeat?" we would ask in a ritual tease.
"Never you mind!"
Whump! The door would snap shut, leaving the mysterious jar to work its magic in the darkeness next to the Cheese Whiz and Worchestershire Sauce.
As it always happened, sometime during our tea, Nana would spy some bit of leftover and announce it was going into the mince.
But that’s an apple peel! We would cry out. Surely not an apple peel? No one could ever remember seeing or tasting an apple peel in last year’s tarts. What else was she putting in there? Leftover bread crumbs? Egg shells? Sometimes while making lunch with bits and odds and sods of cuttings everywhere she would whip something off the counter and into the fridge so fast we had no idea what it was. When we heard the familiar snap of the rubber band we new it had been devoured by the mince.
“Nana, what was that?” we would cry out.
Nana would smile a little wickedly and shake her head.
“The secret to good mincemeat, my girls,” she would explain, cracking the tops off our soft-boiled eggs and cutting up little soldiers of toast, "is in the magic it works when you give it something it likes and then leave it alone to welcome it.”
We didn’t like the idea of the welcome, it seemed to us that whatever went in there was never seen again, at least not in its original form. Truly the elixir that emerged from those glass jars ready for the baking oven was spicy-sweet and flavorful, if somewhat indescribable. Indescribable being the operative word since our delicate child palates did not allow us to linger on thoughts of possible table scraps or other raw ingredients which may have been somewhat disreputable, caught on the fly as it were.
No, indeed, the mince tarts that Nana laid out every Christmas afternoon were pungently sweet and familiar, a generous dollop of the fruity mixture nestled to bake in a bed of flaky pastry and dusted with crunchy bits of sugar. They were pure perfection, down to the little lids cut especially to size so they looked like miniature pies. Two bites and the whole thing was gone, save for the bits of crumbly pastry that always stuck to the corners of your upper lip to be licked later.
Even more than the browning turkey and chestnut stuffing, or the entrance of the flaming plum pudding into a darkened and hushed room, the taste of a mince pie in one’s mouth brought back every memory of Christmases past, the sounds of children running underfoot, mothers and fathers gathered in the parlour amidst a murmuring sea of conversation, Santa’s grand entrance to the sound of sleigh bells with a big sack of presents to be distributed. Toys and books strewn everywhere.
The mingling of smells and noise, aromas pungent and familiar, like those of the mince tarts were best left undisturbed, lest too close an examination reveal the quarrels and the loss, the moments of disappointment on the bleak streets outside in the bitter cold. We steadfastly insulated ourselves from all of this on Christmas Day. Inside my grandmother’s crowded apartment the food and the love was abundant, the realities of living put aside for a few hours to celebrate what was good in our lives.
For that reason I came to understand that perhaps Nana was right about leaving the mystery in the mince. I was content to let her be the holder of the secret, just as she held the secret of who Santa really was until one Christmas my cousin Douglas pulled off his beard and discovered Grandpas’ face underneath. For many years we simply enjoyed the magic created by our family, a time of hobbits and fairies, elves and angels, talking animals and a universe that still allowed for a kindly old man who flew across the night sky every year bringing a toy to children to believed in him.
The secret of Nana’s mince disappeared with her in her 84th year. She taught me a great many things: how to make a perfect apple pie, stuff a turkey, pick a good horse in the 5th, swear with sound-alike words (“I said ship, dearie, not shit”) and why tea tastes better in a proper cup and saucer. And though she gave me precise lessons on how to pick the best apples for her autumn pies, she never told me and I could not bring myself to find out just exactly what went into that mince! And as far as I know she never passed it on to anyone, perhaps because her leaving took her as much by surprise as it did us.
But a few years later I began baking my own mince pies and I believe a little bit of Nana’s recipie must have survived because every year they taste more and more familiar.
The making of the mince has now become a yearly ritual in my household, marking the holidays and creating a new tradition or friends who share our Christmas table. Still rich and pungent, with a bit of crumbly crust to come off on the upper lip for licking later, they are made every year with a great deal of affection, in and for the memory of a woman who believed that all good things in life took time, improvisation, and a little magic.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE!
posted by vallie at 9:18 AM
