Rob, Don’t Eat It!

My apologies to Steve over at The Sneeze.

This is the week when Americans stuff themselves with all manner of gustatory delights. A traditional item found on our family sideboard at Thanksgiving is the venerable mincemeat pie. This is not really a dish common to people of our ancestry. Rather, its appearance on the Thanksgiving Day menu is due to the fact that my father loves the stuff. As does my oldest brother. In the entire family, they are the only ones I know of who enjoy mincemeat pie. And also because my father’s birthday is November 25th and it’s kind of a birthday treat.

Blah, blah, blah, get on with it, right?

So, every year I get the urge to try a piece. Every year the same thing happens…

Bleeeccchh!

How can something that smells so good, taste so bad? A typical list of ingredients—so they say—includes apples, cranberries, raisins, currants, candied orange peel, brown sugar, rum, brandy, butter, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves. Oh, and there’s probably nuts in there too. More traditional recipes also include suet. You read that right, suet. The stuff you put out for birds in the winter.

However, at our house, the mincemeat comes from a jar; a brown gelatinous mass, that glops into the pie shell inviting unappetizing comparisons. Still, it smells damn good while it’s baking. This year, I have determined to find out what it is about mincemeat that makes me cringe. The results of my research are shocking to say the least!

This is a mince.

Native to Europe, the mince  migrated to North America in the late 18th, or early 19th century aboard trading vessels, by hiding in the holds or working as cabin stewards. Once established in the vastness of the United States and Canada, they bred prodigiously. What else does a mince have to do out in the wild?

They were thought to have been hunted to extinction by the end of the 19th century, but still, there persisted a few breeding pairs in the wilds of Montana. These were soon captured and taken to mince ranches where they were treated for acute depression. As they recovered, they bred sporadically, slowly building up the species once more.

Now, with stocks of mince once again secure, commercial mince farmers produce a glut of fresh mincemeat every year at this time, all for the few barbarous people who still relish this, ahem, delicacy.

So this Thanksgiving when you’re stuffed with turkey and all the trimmings, and are eyeing the dessert table, steer clear of the mincemeat pie okay? Go for the pumpkin pie instead. Nobody gives a damn about pumpkins anyway.