Those Mincemeat Tarts........not a recipe

 "I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open it every month." -Harlan Miller

 For a few months leading up to Christmas, my mother would practise making all sorts of tarts. Well,actually the pastry you could use for a tart. She would save bacon grease in a coffee can, in the fridge, and then scoop it out to make pastry. 

  Mincemeat Tarts.   Never Butter Tarts....the gooey kind that people actually liked and would eat.  She would make  monstrous Mincemeat Tarts.It became a sort of pilgrimage towards the holidays, watching her save bacon fat, margarine, butter, whatever she had for the fat can. 

 She would try butter pastry, hot water pastry, lard, margarine, circles of puff pastry.

 Then one year she decided to make her own Mincemeat. Like her mother used to on the farm. Currants, sultanas, raisins,cranberries, mixed peel, apples  more than you could count, would be piled onto the old bread board, and the chopping would begin.My mother would chop  gallons of the stuff in the wee hours of the night. 

I could  hear her from my bedroom. I could hear the tv on....softly blaring, while she chopped away. She loved the late night movies. She would  boil water for tea, while she worked. When she started  hacking away at the walnuts and almonds I could hear her struggling with the flying pieces of nuts. It was an annual project that she got right into.She would continue till about 4 in the morning. Then pile it all into huge bowls. And only then would retire for the night.

 "Christmas is the keeping place for memories of our innocence."
                                       -Joan Mills

 The next day was for boiling up the mincemeat. She would  stuff everything  into pots and cook it down in shifts. Steam  frothing away at the kitchen windows.

 At the end she would quite happily dump in half a bottle of sherry. Sometimes the entire bottle into the mix, then boil the mixture some more...

  There would be company coming.  And they would HAVE to have Mincemeat tarts.  One person who was always invited was my violin teacher, Frona. She was often invited out  by her students at Christmas. And we always had her come as well.

My mother would sit her down in the antique grandfather's chair by the roaring fire. The fire that my mother  had chopped wood for.  That fire HAD to be hot and roaring. Frona was  propped up in the great chair, a small table by her side.She would be given sherry. She often nodded off in front of that fire. It was so hot. So cozy. Between the fire and the sherry. It was impossible to say which was the culprit.

Tea would be offered from the same antique cups I use today. And  Shortbread and  fruitcake. And, last, but not least, the MinceMeat Tarts. But, OHHH , such massive things. They would be made into huge muffin pans, with pastry so thick and flaky you could make a bookshelf with it. And the mincemeat was piled into the centre, topped with MORE pastry. Then heated in the oven till piping, scalding hot. Dusted with icing sugar till it  looked like a  ski hill, then served with great amounts of heavy cream, also heated to molten  consistency.

 That huge crumbling edifice of a MinceMeat tart  always burned Frona's lips. Then would crumble  and totter over , even tumble to the hardwood floor in a heap.  My mother would scramble to clean it up, Frona would make  some sort of apology. But it never got her out of the fact that there were 15 more Mincemeat Tarts, exactly like that one. In the kitchen. WAITING to be devoured. 

  And so, once again, my mother would triumphantly bring forth another gigantic Mincemeat tart, heated to sizzling, and still swimming in thick cream. Frona would look at it forlornly, and place it beside her sherry. She would let it cool. Then carefully taste it, making appropriate mmmmms and yummmmms under my mother's happy countenance. Once it was cool it was edible. Only there was so much of it. My mother never could get away from making  those massive tarts. They looked like mountains. She was proud of them. Frona always took a few home with her. 

 For years to come, those mincemeat tarts were part of the Christmas ritual when Frona would visit.They were always scalding, the fire always roared away, Christmas music on the stereo  gently  playing in the background. The Christmas light would twinkle and Frona would poke and prod at the seething Tart to see if it had cooled down.  And my mother always sent her home with more. It was years later, that Frona told me she gave those Mincemeat Tarts to her two tenants that lived above.And Frona would tell them to heat them up. That they were better that way...my mother would be pleased.

 "Christmas is the season of good cheer...." -Lailah Gifty Akita