Why is the filling in festive mince pies called mincemeat?
Mincemeat is a mixture of chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits and spices, and sometimes beef suet, beef, or venison[citation needed]. Originally, mincemeat always contained meat. Many modern recipes contain beef suet, though vegetable shortening is sometimes used in its place. Mincemeat, and similar variants are found in the UK, Ireland, Brittany, northern Europe, as well as the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with either minced or ground meat. Homemade MincemeatEnglish recipes from the 15th, 16th, and 17th century describe a mixture of meat and fruit used as a pie filling. These early recipes included vinegars and wines, but by the 18th century distilled spirits, frequently brandy, were being used instead. The use of spices like clove, nutmeg, mace and cinnamon was common in late medieval and renaissance meat dishes. The increase of sweetness from added sugars, and those produced from fermentation, made mincemeat less a savoury dinner course and helped to direct
in the medieval time the food tastes were a lot different than now and a lot of fruit and spices were used in the cooking and as pies were made using fruit as well as meat in them was commonplace the contents of the pie were eaten by the upper crust and the pastry part were given to the common folk but as time went by the meat sort of became absent and all that remained was the suet now you know and you got a bonus answer about where the term upper crust emanated from 2 for the price of 1
