Making Mincemeat Out of It: Medieval and Tudor Mincemeat Pies.

In this series:

• A Medieval Hodge-Podge.
• The Earliest Medieval Hodge-Podge Recipes.
• Your Goose is Cooked! Medieval and Tudor Goose in a Hotche Pot.
• Making Mincemeat Out of It: Medieval and Tudor Mincemeat Pies.

I think it’s fair to say that anyone attempting to find medieval or Tudor recipes for mincemeat has failed. Looking for mincemeat (and other minced items) within recipes, on the other hand, yields a wide range of results.

A mincemeat recipe might be labeled a “petit pervuant” — a light paste — as in the most popular mincemeat recipe over the centuries, or an hayrblad[1]. That recipe is first found in The Forme of Cury from the 15^th century.[2]

The Pety Peruaunt. Take male[3] Marow[4]. hole parade[5], and kerue it rawe; powdour of Gyngur, yolkis of Ayrene[6], datis mynced, raisons of corance, salt a lytel, & loke ƥat ƥou make ƥy past with ᴣolkes[7] of Ayren, & ƥat no water come ƥerto; and fourme ƥy coffyn, and make up ƥy past.

The Petit Pervaunt Take skinned meat. Present it whole, and carve it raw.; powder of ginger, yolks of egg, minced dates, raisons of currants, salt a little, & look that thou make thy paste with yolks of egg & that no water come thereto; and form thy coffin, and make up thy paste.

A “coffin” would be the dominant name, among the English, for a pie-crust for centuries to come.

The coffin was not essential, however. Mincemeat was often just a style of preparing a sweet side-dish. If the recipe includes meat, raisins and other minced sweet spices, it is at least a cousin of mincemeat. If the meat is to be skinned and diced or “cut small,” surely it is mincemeat proper. In a coffin, it is a proper mincemeat pie.

Modern commercial mincemeat in a jar generally includes no meat, of course. Presumably to avoid the danger from eating the mince uncooked. The rest of the modern recipe, on the other hand, is pretty much the same as it was in the 14^th century.

In fact, the recipe for Leshes[8] fryed in Lenton, from the 14^th century Book of Cury, of the kitchens of Richard II, is surprisingly modern. Minced dishes for Lent had to be meatless. Fish and eel were generally drafted into service over those 40 days. In this instance, flesh of every sort was left out of the Lenten dish while the sweet spices and sauce were kept.

Leſhes fryed in Lenton.   Drawe a thick almande mylke with water. Take dates, and pyke hem clene, with apples and peeres, and mynce hem with prunes damyſyns. Take out the ſtones out of the prunes, and kerve the prunes a two. Do thereto raiſons, ſugar, floer of canel, hoole macys and clowes gode powdors and ſalt. ... Color hem up with ſandres. Meng thiſe with oile. Make a coffyn as thou dideſt before, and do this fars thereinne; and bake it wel and ſerve it forth.

Cooked almond milk in Lent.   Draw a thick almond milk with water. Take dates, and pick them clean, with apples and pears, and mince them with Damascēne prunes, and carve the prunes in two. Add thereto raisons, sugar, flour of cinnamon, whole maces and cloves, gode [good?] powders and salt… Color them up with sandal wood. Mingle these with oil. Make a coffin as thou didst before, and put  this mixture therein; and bake it well and serve forth.

By Tudor times, pervaunts become “vaunts”. This 1591 recipe is actually a mincemeat omelet.

How to bake Vaunts.

Take the kidney of Veale and perboile it till it be tender, then take & chop it small with the yolkes of three or foure Egs, then season it with Dates small cut, small raisins, Ginger, Sugar, Sinamon, Saffron and a little Salte, and for the paste to laye it in, Take a dozen of Egs both the white and the yolkes, and beate them well togither, then take Butter and put it into a frying pan, and fry them as thin as a pancake, then lay your stuffe therin, and so frye them togither in a pan, then cast sugar and Ginger upon it, and so serve it forth.[9]

By then, other improvements had been made. The Tudors of the late 16^th century just loved their chewets.

How to make Chuets.

Take Veale and perboyle it and chop it very fine, take beefe Suet and mince it fine, then take Prunes, Dates and Corance, wash them very clean and put them into your meat, then take Cloves, Mace, and pepper to season your meat withal and a little quantity of salt, vergious and Sugar, two ounces of biskets[10], and as many of Carowaies, this is the seasoning of your meat, then take fine flowre, yolkes of Egs, and butter, a little quantitye of rosewater and sugar, then make little coffins for your Chewets and let them bake a quarter of an houre, then wet them over with butter, then strewe on Sugar and wet the Sugar with a little Rosewater, and set them into the Oven again, then take and serve five in a dish.[11]

At that time, chewets were small snack pies. This then is a recipe for miniature mincemeat pies. Probably because they were  being sold to individual customers, in various settings, they were measured for one.

 

 

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[1] hayrblad] herbelade, It. herbolata, Lat. herbolasta

[2] Furnivall, Frederick. Early English Meals and Manners (1868). 32. Citing Book of Nurture, Harl. MS. 4011, Fol. 171.

[3] male] O.F. maille – adj. skinned.

[4] marrow] this term has stumped all comers over the centuries and may be a mistranscription. The recipe is generally listed under the "Baked Meats" section in medieval cookbooks.

[5] parade] used here from Latin through O.F. parare – to furnish, present, prepare

[6] ayrene] early English dialect for “eggs”

[7] ᴣolkes] this chronologically earlier of two spellings of “yolks” suggests a transition from Northern to Midlands dialect.

[8] Leshes] The word has a wide range of meanings. Here it seems to refer to the almond milk.

[9] A book of cookrye Very necessary for all such as delight therin. Gathered by A.W. (1591). https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo2;idno=A14584.0001.001

[10] biskets] perhaps cookie crumbs.

[11] A book of cookrye 

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• More on Thomas North as Shakespeare and author of Arden of Feversham. June 14, 2021. “This is also the reason why the title pages included the address of the shop that was selling the book.”
• A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years.  Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
• Gutenberg, proto-Hack Writers and Shakespeare. May 26, 2020. “A less well known effect of the Reformation was that many young Catholic men who had taken religious orders in order to receive an education began to lead lives at large from monastic discipline.  Like Erasmus and Rabelais they took up the pen.”
• Shakespeare’s Funeral Meats. May 13, 2020. “Famous as this has been since its discovery, it has been willfully misread more often than not.  No mainstream scholar had any use for a reference to Hamlet years before it was supposed to have been written.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
• Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.