Mince pies are my favourite thing to eat at Christmas. I side with Nigel Slater, who writes in (the most hygge book I’ve ever read) The Christmas Chronicles, ‘As sweet food goes, I would rather eat a diminutive, sugar-dusted mince pie than almost anything else.’ But, despite my affections for this gently spiced sweet pie, I was, for a while, afraid to eat them. Pull up a pew and let me explain.
I was fourteen years old, anorexic, and it was closing in on Christmas, the most dangerous time of the year for a teenager with an eating disorder. I had a day-long discussion with the voice in my head about the possibility of having a mince pie. It told me I could have half of a pie, but only if nobody saw me eating it, and I did 100 sit-ups afterwards.
I went into the kitchen, quietly closing the door on my family watching TV in the living room. I snuck a mince pie out of the package in slow-motion, petrified that someone might hear the crinkling of the plastic tray as I tugged it out of it’s cardboard box. I cut the mince pie in half. One half was marginally larger than the other. That half went into the bin, under some debris from dinner, inside its silver casing, which I sealed closed and squashed.
I warmed the pie in the microwave for 15 seconds, stopping it a second before the peace-shattering PING. I ate the pie half hunched like a goblin, my thin back to the door like I’d crawled in through the window and was scavenging scraps.
Afterwards, I went to my bedroom and did 100 sit-ups. In the coming years, I’d bake hundreds of mince pies, deep-filled and always topped with a sugar-dusted star. I never let myself eat one.
Fast forward more years than I want to say aloud, and I can eat a mince pie and enjoy it without shame, without feeling the need to burn off the calories immediately. (Well, mostly. I’m not sure if the rattling whine of anorexia will ever disappear entirely.)
While I disagree that they should be coming into the supermarkets in mid-September, the eating of a mince pie sweetens my almost always dark mood and calms my wired, tired soul. I’m with Slater (again), who writes, ‘A mince pie carries with it everything I hold dear about this time of year; it is an edible symbol of the generosity, the kindness and the festive spirit. In that tiny morsal lives the very spirit of the season.’
I’ve been eating a mince pie after breakfast for a few days during this festive season, and it’s felt…gleefully rebellious. I feel even more rebellious when I eat a piece of stollen or a couple of lebkuchen on the same day. Though admittedly a little bit scared, too.
I’m a traditionalist when it comes to mince pies. They need to be deep-filled with a shortcrust pastry. I haven’t taken too kindly to the many adaptations I’ve seen over the years, but even as I write this, I think, ‘Katie, lighten up and give the mince pie baklava a go.’
I did lighten up last year, in a sense, when I bought some mincemeat and, inspired by the now oft-quoted Nigel Slater, made a toasted mincemeat sandwich, which was so good it brought me to tears. And, I say I’m a traditionalist, but the most divine mince pie I’ve eaten was a vegan, gluten-free pie from Holland & Barrett. So, maybe not so much of a traditionalist after all. Except for when it comes to the pie being ‘deep filled.’ There’s nothing more disappointing at Christmas than a sparsely filled mince pie.
I always loathe letting go of my almost daily mince pie eating ritual, and when the prices are slashed low enough, I’ll typically buy several boxes so I can keep eating them into January, potentially even February.
A few years ago, I remember being aghast and simultaneously delighted that my then-boyfriend from Sweden was confused when the mince pie I offered him wasn’t deeply filled with gravy-soaked minced beef. If you’re from England, it’s likely you know that mince pies contained meat once upon a time in the 13th century, as it’s one of those topics that makes the rounds every Christmastide.
The ancestor of the mince pie – one recipie from 1390 called it ‘tartes of flesh’ – included ground-up pork, hard-boiled eggs and cheese, which were mixed with spices, sugar and saffron. Recipes of later centuries included beef, currents, raisins, lemon, cloves, orange peel, goose and tongue. Mutton was a popular ingredient too, and as you can imagine by the bulk of ingredients, these pies were not the dainty ‘practically one mouthful’ pies that we know and cherish but were great hulking things, colossal enough to fill the bellies of many folk.
In the Tudor period, the pies closely resembled little coffins (pleasant) and were made up of 13 ingredients to symbolise Jesus and his disciples. The mutton represented the shepherds and the spices the wise men. In the 18th century, tongue, or tripe was commonly used, and it wasn’t until the late Victorian period that the meat (except suet) was dropped altogether, and the pies became more or less what we eat today.
I’ve been shamefully lax about entwining lore into my ritual consumption of pastry and spiced fruit and didn’t make a wish while eating my first mince pie of the year. I’ve also cut several with a knife, which you’re never supposed to do, apparently. Oh well. I’ll let you know if bad luck starts crashing in.
A Wyrd Of Her Own 