Sanity and Suet

Contrary to expectation, London has been blessed of late with glorious fall weather. A week ago the air turned from tepid gray to sharp blue, so that you now walk through a world stripped bare of summer’s sludge, crackling with frosty brilliance. Leaves cascade like amber jewels from trees, curl to brown, then crunch underfoot in a most satisfying manner. This is rapidly becoming my favorite season.  I love hauling out my long winter coat from the cupboard, wrapping a scarf around my neck, and stepping out into that invigorating world where the wind tugs against my cheeks. During fall, I maintain a reserve of summer’s heat within and so the chill comes as a refreshing change.  And at this time of year the prospect of winter is actually appealing. Through a sort of survivalist amnesia, I forget the reality of endless drizzle, of a sky hovering an ominous gray blanket overhead,  so close and flat and solid that it is enough to induce a claustrophobic panic. Instead my mind conjures up images of beef stew and crackling fires, fondue and hot chocolate and christmas . . . .

Christmas! The thought reminded me of my latest culinary project. This year I am determined to make proper mince pies.

For those uninitiated in this wondrous tradition, mince pies are an age old English Christmas treat. Evolving out of a festive “Christmas pye” that combined a variety of meats and dried fruits, it gradually accumulated the booty of English adventures overseas: from spices brought by the crusaders to sugar squeezed from the colonies. Today the meat has disappeared from the dish, a hint remaining only in the suet used to enrich and preserve the fruit.

This year I decided to go ultra traditional with my pies; I am tredding their home turf after all. Also, I wanted to try properly aging the mincemeat. I’d heard that the mixture of fruit, spices, sugar, and alcohol matures if left to sit, resulting in a superior filling, mellowed and deepened by age. However, being a 21st century babe I’d never had the foresight to get out my mixing bowl in September and stir up a batch.

In fact, in my explorations of old-fashioned DIY cooking, I’ve discovered that many of these lost skills are less a matter of technical expertise (okay, okay, so I haven’t tackled cheese making yet), rather they simply require a different approach to the kitchen. They require something that is a foreign to most of us today. In the world of microwavable TV dinners, 24hour pizza delivery, and Rachel Ray’s 30 minute wonder meals we’ve lost something of the resolute—and to my mind supremely comforting—rhythm of cooking.

September tomatoes are canned for a February bolognese sauce; October apples for winter chutney; summer fruit for Christmas spirits. This week rye and water are stirred daily for next week’s bread. These are projects I take on for fun, as a hobby, and in full knowledge that sometimes I can and will say fuck it, order pizza, wash it down with a cheap larger and luxuriate in the joys of 21st century convenience food. For our great grandparents—or more precisely our great grandmothers—these tasks were endless and probably tiresome. Grub & Grist isn’t about some sanctimonious return to the woods. Its about the love of good food and the satisfaction of creating something wonderful to eat.

And yet I get a lovely sense of fulfillment in from these rhythmical tasks. Waking up in the milky light of dawn, slipping into the kitchen to stir a bowl of sourdough and make a cup of tea while the rest of London sleeps—that is a magical moment of the day. And no matter how dire the news of the world or how difficult my day, coming home and boiling bones for stock or fruit and sugar for jam is immensely and inexplicably reassuring. Obviously I am not alone in this sentiment; most cooks mention the therapeutic nature of cooking in one way or another.  The rhythmic nature of these old culinary arts I find particularly effective, so that the kitchen becomes like an old rock of a friend, a stalwart anchor in an exciting and dynamic—yet often fragmented—world. Even D.H. Lawrence finds it a heartening process:

“I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade.
It’s amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor.”

All I can say is that Mr. D.H. should try mincemeat. It is, in my experience, an equally reviving culinary endeavor.

I am experimenting this year with a recipe from the website Historical Foods, and although I can’t vouch for it yet it looks promising: Early 20th Century: Traditional Mincemeat Recipe. This particular recipe is for a mincemeat that should be aged. Beware of aging any old mincemeat as in needs to have certain characteristics to avoid fermentation. In this version suet is used to prevent fermentation: the mixture is warmed in the oven, the fat melts and coats the fruit acting as a kind of seal. Then a measure of brandy is added for additional protection against bacteria, the mince is packed into sterilized jars and left in a cool place to mature until Christmas.