Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without mince tarts to share with carol singers and a big mince pie to cut into after a holiday meal. But mincemeat is so very Christmassy that it's easy to forget about it for the rest of the year. And that's a pity. A jar or two of mincemeat squirreled away in your cupboard is a shortcut to mouth-watering baked goods such as sticky buns and mincemeat loaf, not to mention super puddings such as mincemeat-stuffed apples and even mincemeat ice-cream - which tastes more delicious than you can believe until you try it.

Of course all these treats taste better if you make your own mincemeat. It's easy to do and since it is not cooked until it goes into a recipe, it involves no hot pans, making it perfect for involving children. They can grate apples and nutmegs, stir in raisins and sultanas, squeeze lemons and oranges and generally share in the taste testing to make sure it has enough apples and sugar, and the mix of spices is just right.

Mincemeat needs stirring occasionally for several days before you pack it into jars, and an old tradition has it that, on the final day, everyone in the house gets to take a ritual turn with the spoon and make a wish. This is always a big hit with children, especially when they've been in on the act from the beginning.

We use sugar, spices and dried fruit freely nowadays, but in the early Renaissance when mincemeat got its start, they reached England only after costly journeys from the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Nonetheless the earliest English cookbooks, which date from the late 14th century, called for them often - not in desserts as we now use them, but in meat dishes. One favourite was mawmeny, a mixture of chopped chicken with wine, dates, cloves, ginger and cinnamon. Bukkenade was veal or chicken cooked with almonds, sugar, ginger or raisins. 'Crustards of Flesh' called for chicken or small birds layered with spices and raisins in a pastry case.

It's but a small step from mixing meat with spices as needed to making big batches and keeping them on hand. Autumn was the time for this because farmers slaughtered any animals that they could not feed over winter and hunters came home from the chase with deer. Large joints of this bounty were salted or smoked for winter; smaller bits were chopped and made into mincemeat.  

Though sugar was an ingredient in Renaissance mincemeat recipes, it was used sparingly, so even though dried fruits gave it some sweetness, mincemeat was still a savoury meat confection. When cheap sugar began arriving from Caribbean plantations in the 18th century, it was used more lavishly. Oranges and lemons were more common too, and they became significant balancing ingredients.

But while recipes for meaty mincemeat still survive in New England and Canada, where deer-hunting is common in autumn, meat disappeared from English recipes, except in the form of suet. Thus, mincemeat became the sweet confection we know today.

Both the cost of the ingredients and the habit of making mincemeat late in the year made it a natural for Christmas dishes. But with dried fruit, sugar, acidic citrus juices and alcohol, mincemeat is a preserve, so if you make your own (or buy in some extra jars from the supermarket) you can keep some handy throughout the year.

Mincemeat can replace dried fruit in many recipes - indeed, it does more than replace it because it adds its own spicy, slightly boozy flavour. For example, you can layer bread and butter with mincemeat rather than raisins to make bread and butter pudding. You can add mincemeat to plain cake recipes, or replace the dried fruit with mincemeat in fruit breads, buns, and muffins.

Mincemeat contains apples and it partners them well when you add a few tablespoons to the sliced apple for a crumble or pie. Add some also to winter compotes of dried fruits. Even in summer mincemeat can play a starring part. A couple of tablespoons stirred into plain boiled white rice turns into the perfect accompaniment to barbecued or curried meat. A mincemeat loaf is good picnic fare. Most impressively, you can wow your family and friends with mincemeat ice-cream.

See recipe index; fruitmince http://womans-world.co.uk/recipes/13.html