I have a business trip to take. Back Monday with all things pumpkin!

Most Americans today have scarcely heard of mince pie. Those who have consider mince pie to be a British thing. Quite an irony when you consider that mince pie was once the quintessential American pie. Far, FAR more popular than apple or cherry, 19th Century Americans ate mince pies all through the year for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So if mince pies were so darn popular…what happened? The answer is somewhat unclear. However it seems to be the case that in the early 20th Century mince pies came under a sort of popular attack, not unlike what we’ve been seeing with fruitcakes the last couple of decades. Starting in the 20’s or so, they became a sort of national joke. More earnest critics of mince pies claimed they were responsible for everything from indigestion and nightmares to psychosis and death.

A regular reader (who’s calling himself “Vlad” this weekend) writes:

On behalf of the life impaired community, I wish to thank you for so eloquently highlighting an important point: that people without a pulse can still make a positive contribution to society. Those of us who are currently dealing with what is widely considered to be life’s ultimate disability thank you.

My pleasure, er…Vlad. Don’t forget I come from Chicago, a city famous for championing the rights of the deceased. Dead people have been voting there for decades.

I’m always more than willing to take a detour into history. Happily for me there’s an indirect connection between this week’s subject and one of the weirdest, most macabre stories of World War II: Operation Mincemeat. Since we’re closing in on Halloween, the story — a tale of how a dead guy helped misdirect the Nazis during one of the most important Allied invasions of the war — seems appropriate.

Ever since Julia Child’s death, food journalists, food celebrities, cookbook authors, bloggers and cultural historians have expended millions of keystrokes lionizing her. I’d say most if not all of that worshipful press is deserved. For Julia Child was a titan in the field of home cooking, having empowered millions of women — and more recently men — to attempt culinary feats once thought too difficult for the average Jane (or Joe).

Amid all these hagiographics, however, it’s important not to forget that Julia Child was but the latest in a line of innovators that have given us home cooking as we know it. That line — among English speakers anyway — stretches back to Hannah Glasse (author of The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy in 1747) and can be traced through Eliza Acton (Modern Cookery for Private Families, 1845) and Isabella Beeton (Beeton’s Book of Household Management, 1861) to Fannie Farmer, author of the Boston Cooking-School Cookbook.

October was a big month for me as a boy. It was birthday time for my twin sister and me. Halloween came a week later, and right in between was the annual Pumpkin Festival in Sycamore, Illinois. Sycamore was over an hour away from our house in Hinsdale, but an old fraternity brother of my father’s was the pastor of the Episcopal church there. Culinarily speaking, that church was the epicenter of the whole festival, since it was there that the mincemeat was made.

It was an elaborate, highly clandestine operation. Dozens of women participated, however like a team of World War II code-breakers, none but the most senior had any concept of what they were doing. The recipe, you see, was a big BIG secret. Only one or two of the octogenarians working the kitchen actually knew the proportions. The rest of the team — which was mostly dedicated to peeling and chopping — was arrayed outside the church kitchen and not allowed through the doors. You’d have thought mad science of some kind was going on in there.