Oh, I loved your comments on my first mince pie post!
Lululiz rightly pointed out:
"Hahahaha, those are the best competitions, where you get to scoff lots of lovely things, and in the end it doesn't really matter who wins, because you are all too stuffed to care, lol."
Heidi of
Bord and Butik asked
"This may sound silly but I have never tried this pie. I always thought it sounded .....are there prunes in it?" Perfectly good question, Heidi - you've taught me a lot about food, so now I hope I can teach you a bit about British Christmas food! I'll begin with another email from a non-Brit (and you can tell...)
Green Thumb said:
"Ha ha! it sounds like a competition for who's getting fatter!" But yes, my Italian friend, the British Christmas
IS a competition to see who can get the fattest! Any Brits out there who disagree? Living in France has shown me that good food doesn't necessarily mean excessive food, but that came as a bit of a shock to a Brit!
So now, to business. Mincemeat used to contain meat, in the Middle Ages, but now only the dried fruits, fat, apple, nuts, sugar and alcohol are left. Those are your basic ingredients - usually dried grapes in all their various forms, and citrus peel. No prunes, actually. Suet can be vegetarian, so you're safe if you don't fancy the traditional beef fat.
The pastry is very important. This is where I feel the Hairy Bikers' recipe really falls down. Theirs sounds good, with a lot of orange peel and orange juice in the mixture, but the pastry comes out of the blender like modelling clay and cooks similarly. Did you find that,
Maggie? I tried it by hand and it was no better.
Therefore, my pies, with the sweetened, enriched pastry recipe from Ben's 1990 Good Housekeeping recipe book, came out the winner. My mincemeat, à la Delia, also wins for the most traditional yumminess. (Delia is Martha without the home decor, for my American friends.) But we did like the HB's smoother, more citrussy mincemeat too, and I've put some of that into my own pastry cases, and we are looking forward to that tonight!
j
Perhaps the best result: Son 2, who is Picky Eater Number 1, decided to try his brother's mincepies because he was starving (nothing else would have motivated him) and he has finally decided he LOVES mince pies! Since then he as also tried mashed potato with pumpkin, which even his brother won't eat! So we have a more relaxed eater, willing try occasionally try a few new things. RESULT indeed!
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When he first arrived in France their little 'French as a second language' book gave them a recipe for crèpes and he's been helping me make them ever since. Now he's pretty much independent, and as he's such a perfectionist he prefers the way he makes them, anyway!
Yesterday was Candlemas, la Chandeleur in French. That's the French Pancake Day, so it was handy that Son 2 came home from school early to take possession of the kitchen. The cause was this:
Just enough snow to keep the teachers from further out of town from getting in for their lessons!
Son 1 and his knee say 'Hi'! We spent yesterday evening eating pancakes and playing Carcasonne. It's not such a hard life...
The boys made him a cake each!
The recipe was from his wonderful new cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa, which he won in 
