The CWI Cookbook

Posts Tagged ‘suet’

3 lb. lean beef
2 lb. beef suet
1 tbs. salt
6 lb. apples
4 lb. raisins
2 lb. currants
1 tsp. cinnamon, ground
1 tbs. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cloves
mace
1 lb. brown sugar
1 qt. Madeira wine
1/2 lb. citron, cut up

Boil three pounds of lean beef till tender, and when cold chop it fine. Chop two pounds of clear beef suet and mix the meat, sprinkling in a tablespoonful of salt. Pare, core and chop fine six pounds of good apples; stone four pounds of raisins and chop them; wash and dry two pounds of currants; and mix them all well with the meat. Season with powdered cinnamon one spoonful, a powdered nutmeg, a little mace and a few cloves pounded, and one pound of brown sugar–add a quart of Madeira wine and half a pound of citron cut into small bits. This mixture, put down in a stone jar and closely covered, will keep several weeks. It makes a rich pie for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

From The Good Housekeeper by Sarah Josepha Hale, 1841

Comment: As might be expected from a receipt calling for more than 20 pounds of ingredients, this is not a recipe for a single pie. Mince recipes–of which there are a huge number of variants–were made up in one marathon cooking session and then packed into jars for use over the next several weeks, months or seasons. This particular one of Mrs. Hale’s was, as she notes, not one of the longer-storing versions since it includes a mere quart of alcohol, which served as a preservative. Most minces intended to last over the whole winter were preserved with brandy–a large amount to start with, and a recommendation that each time some of the mix was taken out for use in an actual pie, that the volume removed be replaced with an equal quantity of yet more brandy or fortified wine. One imagines that the last couple of pies from each jar would have rendered the eaters into a good state of pickled preservation themselves.

 6 lb. lean pork
3 lb. lean beef
2 lb. beef suet
4 oz. salt
6 tbs. black pepper
3 tbs. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. powdered cloves
1 tsp. allspice
One onion, minced fine

Chop or grind the meat, and mix the seasoning well through it. Pack it in beef-skins (or entrails) prepared as you do those of pork. In the city you can have these cleaned by your butcher, or get them ready for use from a pork merchant. Tie both ends tightly, and lay them in brine strong enough to bear up an egg.

Let them be in this for a week; change the brine, and let them remain in this a week longer. Turn them over every day of the fortnight. Then take them out, wipe them, and send them to be smoked, if you have no smoke-house of your own. When well smoked, rub them over with sweet oil or fresh butter, and hang them in a cool, dark place.

Bologna sausage is sometimes eaten raw, but the dread of the fatal trichinae should put an end to this practice, did not common sense teach us that it must be unwholesome, no less than disgusting.

Cut in round thick slices, and toast on a gridiron, or fry in their own fat. If you mean to keep it some time, rub over the skins with pepper to keep away insects.

Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: Our ancestors were not quite such dummies as we sometimes. think. While they were as yet ignorant of such matters as germ theory and the existence of vitamins, parasitology was a well developed science. Trichchinosis was lamentably common, particularly in pigs which served as mobile disposal units in cities for garbage and even less pleasant substances common in the days before municipal sewage services.

This recipe is also one of the rare examples of ethnic cuisine, Italian in this case, in 19th century cookbooks. Most recipes would have been perfectly recognizable to a traveling Englishman, with a few additions from the French, the Dutch, and the occasional German source. The Civil War itself did a great deal to spread ethnic dishes to a wider audience, as people from different areas spent time soldiering, and thereby eating, together.