Ann Reardon

200 year old fruit pie

200 year old cook book ann reardon
 

Do you fancy some meat in your fruit pie? The ingredients for this pie used to be mixed together and then stored for up to four months before baking. I know that both sugar an alcohol can be used for preserving but I just do not like the idea of using meat that has been at room temperature for four months.

 

200 year old recipe as written in the book

.(I used 1/4 of these quantities). See the above video for explanation of how to make this pie, If you leave out the meat the home-made fruit mince is delicious and should definitely be on your list of things to try. The paste (pastry) is also excellent and one that I will use again.

Shred three pounds of meat very fine, and chop it as small as possible; take two pounds of raisins stoned and chopped very fine, the same quantity of currant, nicely picked, washed, rubbed and dried at the fire. Pare half a hundred fine pippins, core them, and chop them small, take half a pound of fine sugar, and pound it fine, a quarter of an ounce of mace, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, and two large nutmegs, all beat fine, put them all into a large pan, and mix them well together with half a pint of brandy, and half a pint of sack, put it down close in a stone pot, and it will keep good for three or four months. When you make your pies , take a little dish, some-what larger than a soup plate, lay a very thin crust all over it ; lay a thin layer of meat, and then a layer of citron, cut very thin, then a layer of mince meat, and a layer of orange peel cut thin; over that a little meat ; squeeze half the juice of a fine seville orange or lemon, lay on your crust, and bake it nicely. These pies eat very fine cold.

Short Crust (makes enough for one pie)
Put Six ounces of butter to eight of flour and work them well together; then mix it up with as little water as possible, so as to have it a stiffish paste; then roll it out thin for use.
Copyright © 2017 Reardon Media Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. How To Cook That

My Cookbook

ann reardon crazy sweet creations cookbook
Stores that sell my book listed by country: http://bit.ly/ARcookbook
All recipe quantities in the book are in grams, ounces and cups.

15 Comments View Comments

  1. Rating: 5

    How did the fruit mince turn out that you stored at room temperature?
    Tamara…from Canada, But lived in EnZed and Aussie

    • Hi Tamara, we opened the fruit mince a few months later and it actually smelt just fine, but I still couldn’t bring myself to eat it. I did look into getting it tested at a lab but it was a bit too pricey.

  2. Rating: 5

    Hi Ms.Ann, my name is Nana,Nana love and I was wondering if you can make another book out of food I know I know you did this before but it’s a different one this one is calle hatchet it’s about a boy called Brian who’s parents are separated and he when to visit his dad in a airplane and he crashed landed and he’s lost.And the author is Gary Paulsen I don’t really if you said his name but I do remember that you did a book.I have this book at one and I’m almost finished reading it but can you please make a hatchet food book please,again my name is Nana Love or you can call me Nana.

  3. Rating: 4.5

    ey Ann, could you please do a giant Turkish delight. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

  4. Rating: 4

    I loved your beautiful British Accent Ann

    • Rating: 3

      Hold on now, did the recioe actually say anywhere to cook the meat, I dont believe I saw the meat being cooked?

  5. Rating: 5

    Hilarious accent

  6. Please share the title/author/place and year of publication of the book.

    • Rating: 4.5

      I want to know the same thing! I follow another channel called Townsends and they specialise in 18th century cooking, so I was wondering if they might have the book available for sale or could point me where to find it online.

  7. Rating: 5

    WHY DOES THAT PIE HAVE MEAT??? WHAT
    THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE AUTHOR OF
    THE 200 YEAR OLD COOK BOOK???!!!!????!!!!!!!!!

    • Rating: 4.5

      Meat pies were very common an still are today in Europe. Ever heard of steak and kidney pie? Standard dinner in England. France is loaded with meat pies of one kind or another? Here in the good old USA we have meat pies too. Ever eaten a chicken pot pie? Sounds like you need to get out more and go on an adventure somewhere. Tap into your inner Andrew Zimmern and go get some bizarre foods. You will be surprised how great some of the foods out there are.

  8. Rating: 5

    I love these types of videos! Your olden day “British accent” is hysterical. Please make more of these!

  9. Rating: 5

    Hi ann, this recipe was a little strange, i cant however help thinking that the “meat” mentioned in the recipe was mincemeat, which as a child we knew sweet mince to be. I maybe totally wrong of course but i have put a link for you to look at and see what you thoughts are. But as it was 200 years ago who knows 🙂 web address removed
    Regards

    • Hi Donna, Yes it could be fruit mincemeat but usually it would tell you that in the recipe, so who knows!

    • My guess is definitely an actual meat, since it calls for being shredded. I can’t imagine you’d ever need to shred mincemeat! 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*

ADD JPEG TO YOUR COMMENT