Barbara Tavares knows what the first question will be whenever she offers someone a slice of her mincemeat pie or talks about her love of mincemeat.

"Does it have meat in it?" Usually accompanied by a slight, disapproving wrinkling of the nose.

The second question is a hesitant "What does it taste like?" — with a glance at the dark, glossy mixture, hinting at unknown and possibly distasteful ingredients.

"People are just uncomfortable with mincemeat," said Tavares, a Makiki Heights resident who grew up in California in a family with Scandinavian roots who always served mince pies during the holidays.

For the record, some mincemeat does contain a meat product: suet, the firm white fat from around the kidneys and loins of beef or sheep. Suet was long used by the English to add richness to baked goods and steamed puddings, in much the way that lard, shortening or butter are used. Tavares thinks the suet adds an undefinable something to the flavor of mincemeat.

As to what's in it, mincemeat, despite its unfortunate name, and the suet tradition, is an old-fashioned fruit conserve making use of many warming holiday-associated spices: cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves. Most recipes are a combination of fresh and dried fruit, sugar, some form of acid to balance the sweetness (vinegar or citrus juice), spices and water or juice — often with a splash of spirits.

And what does it taste like? Well, if you turned Christmas into a jam, that jam would be mincemeat, all sweet and yet tart, spicy and citrusy.

Tavares says she could eat a whole mincemeat pie by herself. And, although most of her family scorns the stuff, she continues to make the pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

"A mincemeat pie baking — whether or not you like to eat it — smells wonderful," she said. "And mincemeat pie with a cup of coffee, it's ... (pause) ... it's better than sex."

Last year, Tavares panicked a bit when she couldn't find her favorite S&W brand mincemeat in local stores. She had to make do with another brand. So she put her sister, a dedicated cook, on the trail of S&W on the Mainland and learned that "due to changing consumer tastes," the company had ceased making mincemeat.

This year, Tavares was able to find mincemeat in only a couple of stores: Crosse & Blackwell brand at the Pali Safeway and an imported English kind that she didn't like as well at the Beretania Foodland (the fruit in that mixture had a hard texture). "I can tell you all the places it isn't because I went everywhere," she said.

For many years, Tavares' habit has been to doctor store-bought mincemeat with the addition of two or three peeled and finely chopped apples — thereby adding some fiber, cutting a few calories and stretching the mixture further.

Tavares says her family thought it was hilarious that she was being interviewed for a story on the food page — she's not known as a cook. But pies have long been a specialty of hers. Years ago, when she was a single mom, she came up with a holiday family activity they call "The Festival of Pies." Everyone gets involved and everyone gets to help make the pie of their choice. One year, with kids and guests, there were 14 pies at Thanksgiving.

There are always two mincemeat pies — one for her and one for her eldest son, who is such a mincemeat lover that he called while The Advertiser was visiting Tavares' home and volunteered to help with the taste-testing of bottled and homemade mincemeats. He said his infant son wanted some, too. His mother wasn't buying it.

Tasted side by side, Tavares' doctored jarred mincemeat and The Advertiser's from-scratch effort weren't all that different. The jarred stuff has a dark, sweet flavor. The Advertiser version is a bit more tart, with more pronounced lemon and orange flavors.

Both went down very easily — even with Tavares' husband, Myron Monte, who admitted he would rather have had his favorite banana pie but said he wasn't above sampling a slice.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.