A Case For Mincemeat Pie This Holiday Season

My grandfather’s favorite foods comprised a culinary genre all their own — what I called “old man food.” He loved organ meats, scrapple, sloppy stewed tomatoes, strong-tasting trout, lima beans and shad roe. Watching him eat made my stomach lurch, and I always wondered how he could possibly find these foods even remotely edible.

Pop’s unusual tastes were even more apparent to me during the holidays, when there were special foods reserved for a brief period that lasted between the end of November and the beginning of January. To me, they were all disgusting. Where we lived, muskrat and oysters were in season in December, if that gives any clue what I was dealing with. Even the holiday desserts my grandfather most craved absolutely horrified me.

He liked Ivins’ Spiced Wafer Cookies, hard gingersnaps so spicy they made my eyes water. He ate rum balls that tasted like black licorice, and loved oatmeal cookies bursting with raisins, an obvious travesty. His fervor for fruitcake was alarming, but because my grandmother loved my grandfather, she made him his favorites each Christmas. My family could never agree on anything, from politics to religion to where to go on vacation, but the one thing that united us was a collective distaste for mincemeat. Only Pop liked it, and he really liked it, so each year my grandmother made him his very own pie. She didn’t make it completely homemade, but there were exacting specifications regarding what brand of mincemeat she’d buy and apparently the only good one was sold at a store 40 minutes away, so she’d make a special trip up there once a year just to get it. If she was feeling lazy, back then Mrs. Smith’s made a perfectly acceptable frozen mince pie, so we often had those, too. I’m pretty sure it’s long since been discontinued.

I heard that in England minced meat also refers to hamburger — ground beef. But the mincemeat I’m talking about is thick, sweet, spicy and brown; a sludge of raisins, booze, orange peels, allspice and other aromatics. Some recipes also involve apples, and almost all varieties include shredded beef and suet. This was clearly a culinary abomination because beef suet was something we threw out in the yard to feed the winter birds. Adding this to a dessert was pure madness, or so I believed. I wouldn’t touch it. In fact, I wouldn’t even go near a mincemeat pie. Gross!

By the time I grew up, I’d long since forgotten the fruitcakes and gingersnaps of my childhood Christmases. When I was in my 20s, my grandfather became ill and he could no longer stomach the foods he’d once enjoyed with such gusto. Pop was sick for over a decade before he finally passed away, and by that time I hadn’t seen or thought of a mincemeat pie in so many years that it had completely slipped from my mind. It was as if it had never even existed.

I was a grownup now, with my own family, creating my own Christmas traditions, and since I was in control we had delights like red velvet cupcakes, frosted peppermint sugar cookies, peanut butter balls and crispy treats. Fruitcake was strictly prohibited.

The Christmas after my grandfather died, my friend Jenny invited me to a Boxing Day celebration, and when I asked what I could bring, her answer stunned me.

“Mincemeat pie,” she answered.

“That’s disgusting. You can’t be serious,” I said.

“It’s wonderful, and it’s tradition. I insist that you make one and give it another try. I think your mind will be forever changed.”

Because I grieved for my grandfather, and because I knew the idea of me baking a mince pie would make him chuckle up in Heaven, I agreed.

Jars of mincemeat weren’t easy to come by in my area, and I didn’t think I could stomach making it from scratch. (Again, suet, yuck.) The brand I clearly remembered that my grandmother liked was apparently a thing of the past, but I got lucky at a British grocery, where the shopkeeper recommended his favorite brand and assured me, I’d love it.

Once my pie crusts were rolled out on my flour-dusted butcher block, I mustered all of my courage and twisted off the lid. It was a deep, stewy brown, thick and flecked with solidified fat, and generally unappetizing, were it not for the wonderful smell. It was as if someone had taken all of my best, warmest and most loving childhood memories of Christmas and preserved them in a jar. Apples, citrus, sweet cinnamon, the perfume of nutmeg and the sharp bite of cloves — it was like December in my grandmother’s kitchen all over again.

Because the mincemeat smelled so good, I grabbed a spoon and tasted it, and it was even better than it smelled. I quickly prepared my pie dish and spread the mixture into the pan. Once the top crust was sealed and the pie was in the oven, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I scraped the last bits of filling from the jar’s bottom and savored every taste. How had I missed out on something so marvelously delicious all these years? Why had I been so reluctant even to try it?

As the pie baked, its warm holiday aroma scented my entire home, and when it was finished, all golden and bubbling, it was a masterpiece.

My mincemeat pie was a hit at the party, and my friend Jenny smiled with satisfaction.

“I knew you’d love it,” she said, and she was right.

Mincemeat pie is now a treasured part of my holiday traditions. We still have the pumpkin pies that everyone loves, the pecan puffs, chocolate cream hearts and jam thumbprints, but the mince pie is what really makes it feel like Christmas for me. The funny thing is that I’m the only one who eats it, usually with a cup of steaming Earl Grey tea, while my family gives me a suspicious side eye. I once tried to get my daughter to give it a try.

“No way!” she exclaimed with a scowl, “How can you eat that?”

I shrugged.

“It’s how I remember my grandfather at Christmas,” I explained.

“Wow, I guess he really liked some gross food,” my daughter said.

I laughed. My Pop did have unusual tastes. I haven’t quite come around to shad roe (and probably never will), but I’m a proud mincemeat convert. Next year, I might just be brave enough to give fruitcake another chance.

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This article was originally published on TODAY.com