Cold boiled venison
Boiled ham or suet
Preserved or dried cherries and currants
1/2 pint sweet (not hard) cider
1 oz. butter
Flour
1 nutmeg, grated (about 1 tbs.)
1 tsp. powdered mace
Thick pie crust to line pan & cover top

Tace cold venison that has been boiled, and as much boiled ham or fresh suet; mince them fine together, stew the bones in a very little water till the gravy is extracted: mix with the mince its weight of preserved cherries and currants. Having a deep dish lined with fine paste, put in your mince, &c. with half a pint of the gravy, half a pint of sweet cider, one ounce of butter, rolled in flour and broken up, a grated nutmeg and a tea-spoonful of powdered mace; then put a crust of paste over the top, ornament it around the edge with scolloped or crimped leaves of the same, and bake it in a moderate oven till the crust is a delicate brown. The crust should be at least one fourth of an inch thick, as the most of people, who are fond of meat pies, prefer a thick crust. The meat having been previously boiled tender, a very short time will be sufficient to bake it.

From The Kentucky Housewife by Mrs. Lettice Bryan, Cincinnati, 1839.

Comment: In case Mrs. Bryan is unclear about the ingredients, you start with however much venison you have boiled, presumably left over from the previous day’s dinner. Say you have a pound of deceased deer: you then add a pound of boiled ham OR a pound of fresh suet, or a half-pound of each, or such other proportion as suits you. Then you take that total–two pounds in this case–and that is the quantity of fruit to be added. We suspect a pound of venison is about the quantity she had in mind, considering the amounts of other ingredients, seasonings, etc., that are listed.

This is a basic mincemeat pie in its original form. It took most of the next century for it to evolve from a means of dealing pleasantly with leftover meat to the entirely fruit-based, sugar-laden dessert which goes by the name of “mincemeat” today.

          

Cold cooked venison
1 small or button onion
Parsley
Thyme
Pepper
Salt
3-4 whole cloves
1 tbs. currant jelly
1 tbs. catsup, either tomato or mushroom
1 tsp. anchovy sauce
Browned flour for thickening

The remains of cold roast venison–especially a stuffed shoulder–may be used for this dish, and will give great satisfaction to cook and consumers.

Slice the meat from the bones. Put these [bones] with the fat and other scraps in a saucepan, with a large teacupful of cold water, a small onion–one of the button kind, minced, parsley and thyme, pepper and salt, and three or four whole cloves. Stew for an hour. Strain and return to the saucepan, with whatever gravy was left from the roast, a tablespoonful currant jelly, one of tomato or mushroom catsup, a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, and a little browned flour. Boil for three minutes; lay in the venison, cut into slices about an inch long, and let all heat over the fire for eight minutes, but do not allow the hash to boil. Stir frequently, and when it is smoking hot, turn into a deep covered dish.

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

Comment: It is interesting that a recipe calling for venison would pop up in a book from 1871, when cooking writers earlier in the century noted that the meat was beginning to vanish from city marketplaces as settlements expanded and “the frontier” was pushed farther and farther west. The advent of the railroad and refrigerated cars for shipment of produce and meat may have caused the change. On the other hand the recipe might simply have been cribbed from another, earlier book, a custom just as common in the cookbook-writing world then as now. The “catsup” called for here, even the tomato version, is not quite the same sauce as we know it today, but everything else is quite straightforward.

          

Steaks from neck or haunch of deer
Pepper
Salt
Butter

If you wish a plainer dish omit the wine and jelly; pepper and salt the steaks when broiled, and lay butter upon them in the proportion I have stated ["a piece of butter the size of an egg for each pound of venison'], letting them stand between two hot dishes five minutes before they go to table, turning them three times in the gravy that runs from them to mingle with the melted butter. Delicious steaks corresponding in shape to mutton chops are cut from the loin and rack.

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

Comment: As the context suggests, this recipe followed another one in Mrs. Harland’s book, which called for an elaborate sauce. The steak is to be broiled on a grill (known as a “gridiron” in the period) before an open fire, with a drip pan underneath to catch the juices and melted fat. Those who enjoy the taste of venison will most likely prefer this simpler version anyway, and those who do not will be happier if served steaks of beef.