Canadian Christmas Recipes.

Today’s post is in honour of my many Canadian friends and readers. I am ashamed to admit that the only Canadian recipe I can find in the blog archives that could be considered to be related to Christmas is one for Mock Mince Pie – and mock will not do for the holiday season. To make up I give you an intriguing Canadian recipe for the real thing – real enough to contain roast beef, but intriguing enough to also include ‘sour almonds.’ I am not sure what is meant by ‘sour almonds’, and presume they are the same thing as bitter almonds.

Mince Pies.

Take equal weights of tender roast beef, suet, currants, raisins, and apples which have been previously pared and cored, with half their weight of soft sugar, one ounce of powdered cinnamon, an equal quantity of candied orange and lemon-peel, and citron, a little salt, and twelve sour almonds blanched and grated. Chop the meat and the suet separately, wash and pick the currants, stone the raisins and chop them with the peel; and having minced all the ingredients very fine, mix them together, adding a nutmeg.

The Dominion home cookbook  (Toronto : A. Miller, 1868.)

As a bonus, here also is an elegantly traditional recipe for goose.

Roast Goose.
After it is picked, the plugs of the feathers pulled out and the hairs carefully singed, let it be washed and dried and a stuffing made of onions, sage, pepper, salt and bread crumbs (many like a few potatoes also in the stuffing); have a brisk fire, keep it well basted and roast according to size - a large goose, one hour and three-quarters, a moderate sized one, one and quarter to one and a half hours. Serve with good gravy and apple sauce.

The Emigrant, (Winnipeg in 1887)

Quotation for the Day.

Oh!  All that steam!  The pudding had just been taken out of the cauldron.  Oh!  That smell!  The same as the one which prevailed on washing day!  It is that of the cloth which wraps the pudding.  Now, one would imagine oneself in a restaurant and in a confectioner's at the same time, with a laundry nest door.  Thirty seconds later, Mrs.  Cratchit entered, her face crimson, but smiling proudly, with the pudding resembling a cannon ball, all speckled, very firm, sprinkled with brandy in flames, and decorated with a sprig of holly stuck in the centre.  Oh!  The marvelous pudding!"
Charles Dickens, ‘A Christmas Carol’