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Practice a little moderation now and then to increase the pleasure of the blow-outs. – advice given to writer Adair Lara by her father

Since August:

• It took 45 minutes for Olive Garden to sell out of their promotional $100 for 49 days of The Never Ending Pasta Bowl.


• The lucky winners paid a hundred bucks and get to eat as much pasta, salad, bread, and Coca-Cola branded soft drinks as they want for seven weeks.


• Red Lobster brought back their Endless Shrimp promotion. $15.99 gets diners all the shrimp, salad, and Cheddar Bay Biscuits they could eat.


• Jack in the Box began offering The Grande Sausage burrito for breakfast, clocking in at 1044 calories, 2131 mg sodium, and 391 mg cholesterol.


• Applebee’s introduced an all-you-can-eat ribs special for $11.99 including fries and coleslaw.


• Unsold Halloween candy is marked down 50% and the endcaps in supermarkets boast gift canisters pyramids of tri-flavored popcorn and gingerbread house kits.


• The November – December issues of health and fitness magazines have hit the shelves. The overriding message on the covers: How to not gain weight over the holidays.

In a whiplash-inducing 180 degree turnabout, there’s a new mantra: eating between November 1 and January 6 is unhealthy and will make you gain weight. From 60 to zero overnight.

Google “How to not gain weight at holiday season” and get 47 million results. The average weight gain ranges from “a pound or two” (Web MD) to five pounds (The Telegraph UK) to seven pounds (Meltdown.com). Advice varies from drinking water and eating slowly (Reader’s Digest) to “snaffling some cocoa-rich slabs for a Christmas day elevenses” (menshealth.uk). Health.com compiled a slide show of “50 Holiday Foods You Shouldn’t Eat” (if you’re feeling masochistic, it’s here ).

(Disclaimer: For people with eating disorders or chronic health conditions, the burst of rich foods that appears at this time of year can be a complication. This is not for or about them; they should follow whatever program they need to maintain stability. Nor does this apply to such religious rituals such as the Nativity Fast.)

Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, chef Shelley Handler (a veteran of Chez Panisse Cafe) asked why we cannot trust ourselves to return to regular eating habits after the indulgence of the holidays is over. Why do the once-a-year treats bring on admonishments and finger-wagging for enjoying Aunt Frieda’s rosette cookies and some crisp turkey skin? What is wrong with us that one of the elements that binds us together – the sharing of food – has become a moral failing, shameful, toxic and fear-inducing?

This scorn of holiday foods is not without precedence. 1664 saw Puritan-dominated Parliament banning Christmas pudding as “a lewd custom… not fit for God-fearing people,” as well as mince pies and Christmas celebrations in general. (This has never been rescinded, so the consumption of mince pies in England is technically illegal.) And in an excellent example of hyperbole, the Quakers went so far as to call Christmas pudding “the invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon.”

Either because they are associated with specific legends, rituals, or religious festivals, or because they’ve achieved what Karl Marx labeled “commodity fetishization,” many holiday indulgences are meaningful because of their special occasion status or because of their links to memory, family, and history. Celebratory dishes such as prime rib or oil-fried latkes, caramel popcorn balls or eggnog with a tot of Jack Daniels – those are not going to kill you on an infrequent basis. No one’s going to say they’re as healthy as steamed organic broccoli, but the healthy factor isn’t the criteria when choosing what to serve on the Eight Nights of Hannukah or at the school Christmas pageant.

Self-denial may be healthy in many instances, but fretting about the lack of nutrients in a candy cane is obsessive and neurotic. Perhaps the burden of excess has rendered us insensate or even fearful toward that which is truly special.

In Marcella Hazen’s essay, “Christmas in Cesenatico, 1945,” she described her family’s return to their nearly destroyed home in Emilia-Romagna after the end of WWII. Their house was stripped of furniture, radiators, and pipes, but Hazan’s father – who had lost eighty pounds in the five years of war – managed to acquire a terra-cotta kitchen stove, wood-fired range, and a dining table and chairs. Christmas dawned, “a morning such as we had doubted… we could ever live again… I had never before, nor perhaps since, experienced such a sense of life being full and right and wholly unblemished.”

She detailed the menu cooked that morning from fowl, flour, and produce that was the gift of a tenant farmer: stuffed pasta in broth, broiled capon, chicken fricasee, cardoons, and bread pudding, plus dried fruit, nuts and homemade Albana wine. “This was the greatest Christmas I would ever know… through the recaptured flavors of our cooking… the gift of life regained.”

Femme de Joie has not done any scientific polling, but she suspects the most-hated pie in America is mincemeat. Perhaps it's partly the name - there's something sinister going on with that - perhaps its unyielding dense stickiness, perhaps the intensity of dried fruit & spice. Maman de Joie was a big mincemeat pie fan - the only mincemeat fan Femme de Joie can think of, actually - and every Thanksgiving and Christmas Maman made one, which she usually wound up eating by herself. Mlle. de Joie refused to touch it.

The history books claim one thing or another about how, when, and where mincemeat came into existence. It was served to Henry VIII; it was developed by Puritans in New England; it was made by Druids. This is one of those pointless "how many angels can dance the Watusi on the head of a pin" questions, though it could make for a lively discussion among foodies if fueled by the appropriate libations.

What is certain is that mincemeat used to include meat. Changing habits and tastes, as well as the advent of modern refrigeration, have made mincemeat meatless. Now it's usually composed of some combination of fruit and spices with sugar and oil, and put up in jars for sale in the supermarket. You open the jar, scrape the contents into a pie shell, cover with a top crust, and bake. Mincemeat pie. Although Mlle. de Joie has gotten over her youthful horror, she finds commercial mincemeat too gummy, too sweet (especially when topped with the requisite hard sauce or whiskey sauce), and too one-note. It can be improved by shredding an apple or two into it, but still, it's really best when used in mincemeat cookies.

However, if you're adventurous, you might find it fun and delicious to make old-fashioned mincemeat. It is not difficult, is open to infinite variation, keeps forever, and will make a far better mincemeat pie than anything from the grocery store. It will also be far less sticky-sweet than commercial brands, with real texture and taste. Make it now and freeze it in anticipation of the holidays.

Femme de Joie developed this recipe from several sources, including John Clancy's Christmas Cookbook, Mimi Sheraton's Visions of Sugarplums, and a recited-from-memory recipe from an old friend who happens to be a stupendous cook. Think of this as a jumping-off place for your own additions and subtractions. Suggested variations are in brackets - for instance, if you don't like citron (and many people don't), leave it out and add something else.

Caveats: if you use dried fruit, either be certain it is unsulphured, or rinse it thoroughly with boiling water to remove sulphur, which can make the finished mincemeat taste unbelievably nasty. Suet can be had at R&R Meats, or ask at the Winco or Safeway meat department: they may be able to get it for you. And do not use an unlined aluminum pot: this mixture can pit the metal.

This can also be used in mincemeat cake and cookies, though for those you might want to finely chop it in a food processor to eliminate any stringy bits of brisket. Another more daring and delicious dessert can be made by heating the mincemeat and flaming it, then spoon over ice cream.

MINCEMEAT

2 pounds lean brisket of beef [venison or other tough-but-flavorful cut of meat, such as might be used for pot roast]
5 or 6 apples, cored and chopped [pears]
1/2 pound suet
2 cups raisins [substitute other dried or candied fruit]
1 cup currants [substitute other dried or candied fruit]
1 7.5 ounce package candied lemon peel [substitute other dried or candied fruit]
1 7.5 ounce package candied orange peel [substitute other dried or candied fruit]
1 7.5 ounce package candied citron [substitute other dried or candied fruit]
1 7.5 ounce package candied cherries [substitute other dried or candied fruit]
1- 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup dark Karo syrup [honey]
2 cups apple cider [pear juice]
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
Brandy and/or rum [or bourbon, scotch, or mixture]

Place the brisket in a pot with 2 teaspoons of salt and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook slowly until it can be shredded with forks. Shred the meat and leave in the cooking broth.

Finely chop the suet and add to the meat. (Put a little cooking oil on the knife to keep it from sticking). Add all other ingredients. At this point you can put the pot in the refrigerator, covered, overnight or up to two days.

Return pot to low-medium heat and add enough liquor to almost cover the mincemeat. Simmer, adding more liquor as needed, all day. Now and then taste and add more spices or fruit as you like. Mincemeat will absorb pretty much all the liquor you care to add to it.

When it tastes good to you, let cool twenty minutes, then pack into sturdy freezer containers and store in freezer. This will keep at least a year.