{"product_id":"antique-1910s-banquet-hall-mince-meat-label-large-edgar-brick-crosswicks-nj","title":"Antique Banquet Hall Mince Meat Label 🦁 LARGE VERSION, Edgar Brick \u0026 Sons Crosswicks NJ, NOS 1910s","description":"\u003ch2\u003eReal Brandy and Real Beef 🥧 Antique 1910s Banquet Hall Mince Meat Label, Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons, Crosswicks, N.J. - Large Version\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 8 1\/4\" x 5 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xjiP0xloevU\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eNow that's a recipe: \"Combines Apples, Sugar, Raisins, Currants, Candied Peels, Beef, Spices, Salt, Brandy and 1\/10 of 1% Benzoate of Soda.\" BANQUET HALL MINCE MEAT runs across the top in tall black letters, NET WEIGHT 30 LBS. sits in a little box, and Manufactured by EDGAR BRICK \u0026amp; SONS, CROSSWICKS, N.J. fills the bottom, all inside a checkered border on cream paper. It's the big 30-pound tub size, and it was never used. Stores sold Brick's by the pound: in 1907 Karg's and Durand's, both advertising in the Mount Holly News, had it at 10 and 12 cents a pound, and Durand's promised that with Brick's \"you always have good pies.\" Mince pie was a big deal back then - it had been part of Thanksgiving dinner since the 1600s, and it was thought of as America's national dish until apple pie took over in the 1940s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🥃 Why I Call It 1910s\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThree things on the label tell you. The benzoate line follows the 1909 rule that let packers use 1\/10 of 1% benzoate of soda if they said so on the container. The net weight follows the 1913 law that made packers print it. So it's 1914 or later. And the brandy is just listed, plain as day, with nothing about Prohibition anywhere on it - that's why I put it before 1920, in the 1910s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMince meat and liquor didn't part ways in 1920, either. Food was exempt from the alcohol ban, canned mince meat got popular during Prohibition precisely because it still had alcohol in it, and some tinned mincemeat ran over 14 percent. In 1922 the national catering and liquor interests launched a legal fight for a cooking exemption, and they built their case almost entirely on mince pie. A Prohibition-era Banquet Hall label from Brick's shows what that looked like on the label: a federal Prohibition permit number, N.J. H-926, and PROOF ALCOHOL BY VOLUME 14 PER CENT. This one has none of that - just Brandy, sitting in the list between the salt and the benzoate. They used real brandy in this old recipe, which probably helped with customer retention :)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🏪 Brick's of Crosswicks\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEdgar Brick and his wife Susan came to Crosswicks in the 1850s and opened a general store on Main Street, and in 1874 Edgar decided the mince meat he was buying from Philadelphia wasn't good enough and made his own. Seventy-six pounds the first year! After five years of growing sales he needed more room, so in 1879 he moved two farmhouses onto the lot and joined them into a factory, and by 1900 Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons was the biggest mince meat maker in New Jersey. His sons Arthur, Josiah and Charles took over when he died in 1920, the Brick family ran the business for another 48 years, and by World War II they were the biggest in the whole country - three million pounds a year with 40 workers. Banquet Hall was one of their brands, along with Nonpareil, Old Homestead and Beechwood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBrick's was a very popular mince meat in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the papers of the day said so. In November 1893 the Jamesburg Record called Brick's Mince Meat \"known in twenty States\" and declared that a good mince pie with Brick's between the crusts could soothe a panic-stricken people faster than a ton of silver-bill repealers (this was right in the middle of the Panic of 1893). A few months later the Mount Holly News reported that Edgar had started out with a chopping knife and 60-pound batches, and was now making 700 pounds at a batch, more than half a million pounds a year, with shipments going as far as Boston, Detroit, Akron and Washington, D.C.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmericans started eating less mince meat in the 1960s. Brick's quit mince meat in 1968, made alcoholic beverages for a while, and closed in 1979, when much of the old equipment and furnishings went at auction. The Hamilton Uniform Company bought the old farmhouse factory in 1980 and kept a business there for many years. The building sits right in the Crosswicks Village historic district, and Preservation New Jersey put it on its endangered list in 2017, after it had stood empty for several years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Bricks did a lot more for the village than make pie filling - they helped bring electricity to Crosswicks, built a mill and an ice plant on Crosswicks Creek, and helped start the Chesterfield Township Historical Society. Edgar himself joined the Crosswicks fire company in 1864 and became its first chief in 1882, and his sons Josiah, Charles and Arthur gave the company its first firehouse and a motor chemical fire engine in his memory. The firehouse was dedicated on November 25, 1922.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e💣 The Village\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrosswicks is a Quaker village going back to 1677, and there's a cannonball from a June 23, 1778 skirmish still mortared into the wall of its brick Friends Meeting House, built in 1773. That fight came five days before the Battle of Monmouth, and three cannonballs hit the meeting house. One left its dent in the brick, and it was saved and later set back into the wall right where it struck.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGreat framed in a kitchen, a bakery or a dining room. You'll get one like the one shown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📷 About the Last Two Photos\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose are just for history - you get the label, not them! They're the Brick family's own things, kept today by the Chesterfield Township Historical Society in Crosswicks: the chopping block the family says Edgar made his very first mince meat on, and the green spice bucket they measured spices with. The society says the bucket still smells of spices.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/large-version-antique-1910s-beechwood-mince-meat-label-treasures-gifts\"\u003eAntique Beechwood Mince Meat Label 🥧 LARGE VERSION, Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons Crosswicks NJ, Rum Recipe NOS 1910s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1920s-30s-buyers-special-mince-meat-label-edgar-brick-crosswicks-nj\"\u003eAntique 1920s-30s Buyers Special Mince Meat Label 🍎 LARGE VERSION, Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons Crosswicks NJ, NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/rare-antique-1910s-1930s-old-homestead-mince-meat-strip-label\"\u003eAntique Brick's Old Homestead Mince Meat STRIP LABEL 🏡 Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons Crosswicks NJ, Letterpress NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769703608485,"sku":"VAG-7034816135333","price":11.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3358660253_5gkl.jpg?v=1785353509","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1910s-banquet-hall-mince-meat-label-large-edgar-brick-crosswicks-nj","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}