One of my favourite Christmas foods is mince pies. I am not sure I would have enjoyed as much the FIRST Christmas mince pies, filled with spiced meat and suet. The origin of the mince pie dates back to 13th century when Crusaders brought back to England Middle Eastern spices and methods of cooking meat with various fruit and spices. The early mince pie was known by several names, including "mutton pie", "shrid pie" and "Christmas pie". Typically its ingredients were a mixture of minced meat, suet, a range of fruits, and spices such as cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Served around Christmas, the savoury Christmas pie (as it became known) was associated with supposed Catholic "idolatry" and during the English Civil War was frowned on by the Puritan authorities. Nevertheless, the tradition of eating Christmas pie in December continued through to the Victorian era, although by then its recipe had become sweeter and its size markedly reduced from...
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