Paul Timbrell on 6 Dec 2004  •  Link

Mince pies (or shred pies as they were also known, because the meat was shredded with a knife) were not just eaten at Christmas.They were a savoury-sweet mixture of meat, fruit and sugar, and one might be as much as 20lbs in weight; not so surprising when a recipe could include a whole leg of lamb, as well as suet, currants and prunes. Only a bread oven would be big enough, in those days, to accommodate such a pie. Over the years the content changed to leave us with our meatless mincemeat (How did the E.C. miss that one?).

Ruben on 6 Dec 2004  •  Link

mince pies in Pepys times.
See in the BBC site:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A66…
and find some hare raisins pig pies!

CGS on 25 Dec 2009  •  Link

OED
minced pie
mince pie, n.
[DRAFT REVISION Sept. 2009 Go to earlier version of entry ]
1. a. A savoury pie containing minced meat, esp. beef; a meat pie. Now chiefly Sc. and N.Z.
1573 C . HOLLYBAND French Schoole-maister 94 O Lorde, he hath supped up all the brothe of this mince pie. 1768 T. HULL Royal Merchant III. ii. 48 Hig. Oh the pies! the piping hot mince pies! Prig. The fine fat poultry!

b. A pie or tart containing mincemeat (see MINCEMEAT n. 1b), usually one eaten during the Christmas season and also (in N. Amer.) at Thanksgiving.
In Britain, the pies are now usually small, round covered tarts; elsewhere they are often traditionally larger.
{alpha}
1604 T. DEKKER News from Graves-end Ep. Ded. sig. B3, Ten thousand in London swore to feast their neighbors with nothing but plum-porredge, and mince-pyes all Christmas.

1662 S. PEPYS Diary 6 Jan. (1970) III. 4 We have, besides a good chine of beef and other good cheer, eighteen mince-pies in a dish, the number of the years that he hath been married.

1673 T. SHADWELL Epsom-Wells IV, in Wks. (1720) II. 247 For currants to make mince-pyes with.

1600 S. ROWLANDS Letting of Humors Blood Epigram viii. sig. A7v, He liues not like Diogines on Rootes: But proues a Mince-pie guest vnto his Host.

Michael Robinson on 18 Dec 2010  •  Link

Recipe for six mince pies of 'an indifferent bigness'

Description: This recipe for “Six Minst Pyes" is bound amongst the Conway Papers, part of the State Papers of Charles I, created by Edward Conway, Charles’ Secretary of State.
National Archives Catalogue Reference: SP 14/189 f7

Transcript
For six Minst Pyes of an Indifferent bignesse.
Take halfe a peck of the finest Flower, 2 li[bra]s of Suger, 2 li[bra]s of Butter, a Loyne of fatt Mutton, w[i]th a little of a Legg of Veale to mince w[i]th it, 2 li[bra]s of Reasons of the Sunn, as many Currons , of Cloves, Mace, and Nuttmeggs one ownce.
For the Paist mingle 1 pound and a halfe of Suger w[i]th the Flower and breake in the Yolkes of six Eggs, then worke it together w[i]th 3 parts of the two pounde of Butt[e]r. Set of a little water, and let it Seethe, then scym it and put in the 4th Parte of the Butt[e]r, and when it is melted, Scym it cleane from the Water, and work it w[i]th the Paist.
For the Meate. Let it be seasoned w[i]th Pepper, and mingled with halfe a pound of Suger, the other Frute and Spyce, the Raisons must be stoned, & some of them minced amongst the meate, the others put in hole, put in the Joyce of two Orringes and one Leamond, and the Ryne of them smale minced.
When the Pyes are filled slice Dates and stick in the top, and when you sett them into the oven Wassh them over w[i]th the yolkes of Eggs, and pynn them upp in Papers.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nati…

Bill on 12 Nov 2014  •  Link

To make a Mince Pie. Boil a neat's tongue two hours, then skin it, and chop it as small as possible. Chop also very small three pounds of beef suet, three pounds of good baking apples, four pounds of currants, clean washed, picked, and well dried before the fire, a pound of jar-raisins stoned and chopped small, and a pound of powder sugar. Mix them all together with half a pound of mace, as much nutmeg, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, the same quantity of cinnamon, and a pint of French brandy. Make a rich puff-paste, and as you fill up the pie, put in a little candied citron and orange cut into small pieces.
---The Accomplished Housekeeper, and Universal Cook. T. Williams, 1717.

eileen d. on 20 Jun 2017  •  Link

during the interregnum, it seems mince pies were political...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…
"...During the English Civil War, along with the censure of other Catholic customs, they were banned: "Nay, the poor rosemary and bays, and Christmas pie, is made an abomination."[11] Puritans were opposed to the Christmas pie, on account of its connection with Catholicism.[1] In his History of the Rebellion, Marchamont Needham wrote "All Plums the Prophets Sons defy, And Spice-broths are too hot; Treason's in a December-Pye, And Death within the Pot."[12]..."

San Diego Sarah on 15 Dec 2024  •  Link

Mincemeat is a Middle Eastern method of cooking meat with fruit and spices. The Crusaders may have brought the recipe back from the crusades. At the very least they brought back the spices.

Medieval English cooks made mincemeat with meat, any kind of meat: mutton, goose, beef tongue, even lamb testicles. They added suet, apples, citrus and spices. Later, the pies grew sweeter because the the West Indies sugar plantations made sugar cheap and available.

The sugar used in mincemeat had the advantage of preserving the meat. The fruit and spices may also have disguised meat that had gotten a little too old. Because the meat was shredded or minced, the pie was called “mince” or “shred.”

Three spices – nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon — were said to represent the gifts brought by the Magi to the Christ Child.
Cooks also made the pies with 13 ingredients, to represent Christ and his apostles.

Eventually they began putting a pastry star on top of the mincemeat pies to indicate the Star of Bethlehem followed by the Magi.

Sometimes the pies were as small as tarts, and they came in many shapes. One recipe said they should be oblong, in imitation of the manger that held the baby Jesus. That’s why they’re sometimes called “Crib cakes.”
Eventually cooks made the smaller pies in all kinds of shapes.

Mincemeat pie was such a Christmas favorite that people called it Christmas Pie. Every family made one, “a most learned mixture of neat’s tongues, chicken, eggs, sugar, raisins etc."

Family cooks often made mincemeat pie on stir-up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent. They believed they should only stir it clockwise, because stirring it the other way would bring bad luck.
For good luck, each member of the family stirred the mixture while making a wish. Another superstition held that a mincemeat pie should be eaten every day during the Twelve Days of Christmas for health and happines in the new year.

A variation on the mincemeat pie could be found in Coventry. Called God-cakes, they were triangular, an inch thick and filled with a kind of mincemeat. The people of Coventry ate them on New Year’s Day.

The poet Robert Herrick wrote that it was once the tradition to guard the Christmas pie – from thievery, not the Puritan authorities.

"COME guard this night the Christmas-Pie,
That the thief, though ne’er so sly,
With his flesh-hooks, don’t come nigh
To catch it

"From him, who all alone sits there,
Having his eyes still in his ear,
And a deal of nightly fear
To watch it."

Highlights from
https://newenglandhistoricalsocie…