Welcome to HowToCookThat I'm Ann Reardon and today we're going to make another recipe out
of the 200-year-old cookbook.
We made the cheesecake a little while ago and you asked us to make some more recipes
out of this book.
So I have been looking through and one that caught my attention was fruit pies.
So I thought we'd start with a fruit mince pie.
The 200-year-old cookbook says: "There are several things necessary to be particularly
observed by the cook, in order that her labours and ingenuity under this head may be brought
to their proper degree of perfection.
One very material consideration must be, that the heat of the oven is duly proportioned
to the nature of the article to be baked.
Light paste requires a moderate over; if it is too quick, the crust cannot rise, and will
therefore be burned; and if too slow it will be soddened, and want that delicate light
brown that it ought to have."
In other words ... pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees (C).
Next the recipe says: "Put 6 ounces of butter to 8 ounces of flour and work together well."
I'll type out all these recipes for you on the HowToCookThat.net website and there's
a link to that below.
Once you've rubbed the butter into the flour so it looks like this you're ready for the
next step.
"Then mix it up with as little water as possible so as to have a stiffish paste."
I didn't know that pastry used to be called paste, did you?
Well now that we've made our paste, let's move on to the filling.
Shred 3 pounds of meat very fine, and chop it as small as possible.
Wait a minute!
I thought this recipe was under 'Fruit Pies' - it is under fruit pies, why are we adding
MEAT to it?
This is very strange but let's go with it.
"Take 2 pounds of raisins, stoned and chopped very fine and the same quantity of currants
nicely picked, washed, rubbed and dried by the fire."
I'm going to swap the fresh currants for dried ones and the dried raisins for fresh grapes.
Fortunately I don't have to seed the grapes because we have seedless varieties now.
Imagine having to cut the seeds out of every one of these before you used them.
Okay what's next?
"Pare half a 100 pippins, core them and chop them small".
Well, pippins are apples and I'm going to make a quarter of the recipe, so I'm not going
to be using 50 ... paring them just means to peel them and core and chop are self-explanatory.
What does it say next?
"Take half a pound of fine sugar and a quarter of an ounce of cloves and two large nutmegs
and heat them all fine.
Then put them all together in a large pan and mix them well together with half a pint
of brandy and half a pint of sack.
Put down close in a stone pot and it will keep good for 3 or 4 months."
WHAT!?
You're kidding me!
3 or 4 months!
Imagine knowing that the meat may have been stored for up to 4 months before you ate it.
Then I just wouldn't be eating it for health reasons.
Oh my goodness that's just scary!
For the sake of science, I'm going to put some in a jar for 4 months.
There were no fridges when this book was written so surely this is just going to go off at
room temperature.
Anyway let's read what it says next...
"When you make your pies, take a little dish, somewhat larger than a soup plate and lay
a very thin crust all over it.
Lay a thin layer of meat then a thin layer of citron, cut very thin.Then a layer of mincemeat
and a layer of orange peel cut thin.
And then over that, a little more meat".
What is with all this MEAT?!
This is supposed to be a fruit pie not a meat pie.
Then it says: "Squeeze half the juice of a fine seville
orange or a lemon."
I have so much of this fruit mince mixture left over that I'm going to make another pie
without those layers of meat and the citron.
Just the fruit mince that we made.
And keep in mind that this is just one quarter of the recipe!
Finally it says: "Lay on your crust and bake it very nicely.
These pies eat very fine cold."
Well it certainly looks yummy from the outside.
Time for the taste test, we're going to start with the one that has the most meat in it.
You might not like them.
Okay.
They're actually from the 200-year-old cookbook.
Okay, alright well uh, that was good last time.
When you made the cheesecake, it was tasty so we'll see how the ... what is it?
This is a traditional 1800s fruit mince pie.
Hmm, okay fruit mince pie.
Like a Christmas pie?
Yeah, like my mum made at Christmas, which I know you don't love fruit mince pies but
this one is actually quite different to what my mum makes.
So you might like it.
Oh I like your mum's pie.
You do not like fruit mince pie, you like my mum's apple pie.
Oh this has got mince in it!
As in meat, yes he's already picked that up.
You have to taste it.
Is it sweet?
Tell people what it tastes like.
You like meat and you like fruit, do you like them together in a pie?
I don't like the thought of it together.
But do you actually like the taste of it?
It's not bad.
Really?
Oh I couldn't eat that one!
I nearly spat it out.
I'm shuddering at the thought of it.
It's okay.
Oh it's not, it's awful.
Seriously?
You think that's okay?
I mean I don't know if I would choose to eat it but it's not as bad as I thought it would
be.
What if I told you that I had stored the mince with the fruit for 4 months at room temperature
before baking it in the pie?
Is that what they used to do?
Yes.
It's no wonder that they're no longer alive!
It's not what I did of course, I didn't want to put us at any risk but that's what they
used to do.
It was a way of preserving the meat.
Really.
But I just could not bring myself to do that.
I thought I might actually leave some for 4 months and then go get it tested.
See what's growing in there.
That one had a layer of meat, a layer of fruit mince and another layer of meat.
The next one is just fruit mince, still the 200-year-old recipe it's just I haven't put
the layer of meat in between the layers of fruit mince.
Do I use the same spoon?
Yes, that's fine.
This one's got germs on it.
It's your spoon.
It can only have your germs on it.
Even so...
I thought you might actually like the pastry on this one because the pastry is kind of
melt-in-your-mouth.
It's actually really good pastry, you're a bit of a pastry fan.
What do you think of that one?
So this one's more of a dessert.
Well it's more fruity, it's got less meat.
They were both under 'fruit pies' in the recipe book.
So I don't quite understand if they ate the other one as a dessert or a main course or
what they do but this one's definitely more desserty.
This is my take on their one, I just took out extra layers of meat.
But it's still got, it hasn't got a lot of meat, but it's still got meat in it.
It has still got meat in it, you spotted that.
Wow.
Bit unusual?
Look, it's not bad.
Would it be better with no meat in it?
It'd be an apple pie wouldn't it.
Well no it's got grapes and currants and spices and so it wouldn't be an apple pie, it would
be more like a fruit mince.
Can you taste all those spices?
See the thing is that I don't like fruit mince pie.
That's right, but do you like this type of fruit mince pie where it's not so sweet.
I actually prefer this to normal fruit mince, just so sweet it's horrendous.
So you like home-made fruit mince but you'd like it without meat.
Apparently so.
So if I was going to make it again, just leave the meat out.
There just seems no reason to have meat in there.
Which indeed I think is what has happened over the years, it's separated out to become
a fruit pie and just a meat pie.
Let me know if you'd like me to check out more of the 200-year-old recipes, leave a
comment below.
Make it a great week and I'll see you on Friday.
Do you reckon anyone who is deaf watches this part of the video where there's no sound and
is lip reading it?