Show MINCE PIE The Sun of New York has a dissertation disserta-tion on mince pie What set it going was a line from the Boston Advertiser to tho effect that A whole century has failed to improve New England mince pie Upon that the Sun disserts brilliantly but not with the wisdom which makes the effort worth preserving There is much scholarship In the effort but It is of tho books not of the real chemistry chem-istry of the mlnco pie For Instance read this A thousand years will flap their cloudy wines and crow delightedly and think no small beer of themselves and yet New England mlnco plo will not be Improved To gild refined gold to paint the Illy And not tho Puritan and Pilgrim tho Congre KaLionallst and Brownlst mlnceplc alone Plo Is I a matter of nieces and not of sec tions Tho Catholics of Maryland tho Church of England men of Virginia tho Quakers of Pennsylvania could make fho < wondrous product Perhaps it was richer along tho James and tho York than in the Blacustono valley or along the Connecticut Connecti-cut But thiTu Is no telling npw Per haps the South had more a gift for plum pudding and tho North a more serious call to mlnco pIes It Is enough lo know that great Pies wore made compositions oC genius dramas In mince meat and they were eaten by great people No paltry raco could have survived thom stabvart dishes That is beautiful but It lacks the flno discrimination that comes of actual knowledge It Is like an article in an Eastern paper culled mostly from the encyclopedia giving it description of the cyanide process for working ores or the fluxes needed In Kmolilnr For verily there was a vasC difference In the ancient mince pie In New England Eng-land where wino and brandy were eschewed It was a delight to introduce boiled hard elder into the plO The partakers comforted their souls with the thought that no vile intoxicant like French brandy had been used and kept their mental reservations back out of I sight for they knew that they were eating something which when generously gen-erously partaken meant an Intellect clouded which the brain could not throw oft for three Shys when under Its real Influence Then In the cold Northern climate there was a preponderance of meat in n tho pie for adipose tissue to stand off the lowered temperature was a necessity neces-sity slbIn In the South the cider was ignored and real brandy was used also less meat and those who had not raisins convenient substituted dried currants for three reasons One was they had dried the currants and knew they were clean again they were more tart than the raisins and crave a better flavor i I and finally they had not the raisins It was In the middle region where the brandy and raisins could both be counted on where there was Just enough fruit and Just enough meal and where the pastry of the pie made a perfect chemical combination with the Inner substance and It all on the tongue melted away like n womans anger under the kisses of the lady next door The fault of modern scholarship Js want of thoroughness That Is what the article of the Sun on mince pic brings vividly to mind |