Did You Know? ~ Neat Minced Pies--Not What You Think

I have two more vintage recipes for our readers. These two pie recipes first caught my eye because of the unfamiliar ingredients. One calls for “neat’s feet,” and the other calls for “neat’s tongue.”

Neat to me is how I wish my family would keep the bathroom, not a food item, tongue or foot. So, of course, being the queen of Google, I looked it up. As I suspected, neats are beef cattle – the ox, the steer, the bull, and the cow.

So with no further ado, here are two minced meat recipes from the First American Cook Book 1796, along with crust recipes referred to as “paste.”  (Please note that the recipes, including word use and punctuation, are exactly as appears in the cookbook.)

A Foot Pye

Scald neat’s feet and clean them well, (grass fed are best) put them into a large vessel of cold water, which change daily during a week, then boil the feet tell tender and take away the bones, when cold, chop fine, to every four pounds minced meat—add one pound of beef suet, and four pounds apples raw, and a little salt, chop all together very fine, add one quart wine, two pounds of stoned raisins, one ounce cinnamon, one ounce of mace, and sweeten to your taste, make use of paste No. 3—bake three quarters of an hour.

Paste No. 3: To any quantity of four, rub in three fourths of its weight of butter, (whites of eggs to a peck) rub in one third or half and roll in the rest.

A Tongue Pie

One pound neat’s tongue, one pound apple, one quarter of a pound of butter, one pint of wine, one pound of raisins, or currants, (or half of each) half ounce of cinnamon and mace—bake in paste No. 1, in proportion to size.

Paste No. 1:  Rub one pound of butter into two pound of flour, whip two whites and add with cold water, make into paste, roll in six or seven times one pound of butter, flouring it each roll. This is good for any small thing.