Roast your apples put in a little basin (?), laset [to set?] them a working let it work 3 days with a little sugar in them (?) then mix it with a little suitt (?) sugar, currants. Lass [Lasts ?] 9 mon [months] [Any thoughts, anyone?]
It looks like the [carmelized] apples would ferment ever so slightly with the sugar, which would act as a preservative [like brandy] along with the other ingredients. It's interesting that no meat is in this recipe.
I filed it as mincemeat!- maybe mince meat really used to be called mice meat; probably not, sadly! Would there have been meat in 'suet' in those days?
Pre 17th century, mincemeat was once spiced meat and the suet is a leftover from those days. Now, of course, we can have vegetable suet. Mincemeat might be referred to as 'fruitmince' to Americans.
I was born in Newton Heath on 22 May 1836 and ran a shop in Miles Platting (or Newton Heath), just off the Oldham Road. I began this recipe book in 1861 when I lived at 292 Shakespeare Terrace (see first post). I married John Smith Gradwell on the 30th October, 1862 at All Saints' Church, Newton Heath and I died in 1912 (I think).
The receipes (about two hundred of them) are from the original recipe book which has been handed down through a few generations. The early recipes are just lists of ingredients but later ones are more instructive. The later ones are pages long - and there are newspaper cuttings. Handwriting and presumably authors change during the book. I have posted them in the same order as the book. It looks as though the book was written from both ends and some of the more modern recipes are in the middle.
The recipes come from two sources: Elizabeth Ridings' recipe book (dated 1860 - see first post) Bertha Caroline Wells' recipe book (dated 1898) [BCW] The scraps of newspaper were inserted into the recipe books.
Bertha Caroline Wells is my Daughter in Law (Born on 7th June 1873 in Bury, Lancashire. Died on 13th June 1930)
5 comments:
It looks like the [carmelized] apples would ferment ever so slightly with the sugar, which would act as a preservative [like brandy] along with the other ingredients. It's interesting that no meat is in this recipe.
...or mice for that matter!
more like mi(n)ce meat really.
I filed it as mincemeat!- maybe mince meat really used to be called mice meat; probably not, sadly! Would there have been meat in 'suet' in those days?
Pre 17th century, mincemeat was once spiced meat and the suet is a leftover from those days. Now, of course, we can have vegetable suet. Mincemeat might be referred to as 'fruitmince' to Americans.
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