This is why we eat mince pies at Christmas (2024)

FAQs

Why do we eat mince pies at Christmas? ›

According to reports, medieval people believed that if you ate a mince pie every day between Christmas and Twelfth Night, you'd be brimming with luck and happiness for the next 12 months. While there may not be any truth in the old myth, the tradition of eating mince pies every Christmas has certainly stuck.

In the Tudor period they were rectangular, shaped like a manger and often had a pastry baby Jesus on the lid. They were made from 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and his disciples and were all symbolic to the Christmas story.

Go with the tradition and eat a dozen

There is a tradition of eating one mince pie each day over the 12 days of Christmas from Christmas Eve to 5 January.

of Christmas it brings good luck for the year ahead. According to tradition, you must also make a wish. when eating your first mince pie of the season.

Many believe the idea for the mince pie originated with Middle Eastern cuisine in the 12th century, when spices and fruit were often used in savory and sweet meat dishes. Before refrigeration, spices and sugars were used for preservation to slow down spoilage.

According to my favourite historian of Christmas, Gerry Bowler, mince pies are not just delicious they are full of symbolism. The original mince pies were oblong crib shapes decorated with a baby Jesus on top. The contents represent the gifts of the Magi to the Christ child, spices and plump middle eastern fruits.

The tradition comes from the time of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, when mince pies were banned at Christmas, along with other tasty treats. Cromwell wanted to tackle gluttony in England.

One superstition from the middle ages suggests that if you eat a mince pie every day from Christmas day to Twelfth Night (evening of the 5th January) you will be guaranteed happiness for the next 12 months mmmm!

In the US, there are no laws regulating what foods fictional characters can consume, transport or distribute. Mince pies are not commonly consumed in the US outside of the New England region. Perhaps if more Americans were familiar with them they would be banned. Or perhaps not, who can know.

Thankfully Santa starts off his trek with some actual food. Appropriately combining sweet fruits and spices with savory minced meat, mince pies are a hearty British classic that should fill his jolly belly while the snifter of sherry is the reason his nose gets so red.

How many mince pies do we eat at Christmas? ›

Mince pies are one of the staples of the UK Christmas. According to Good Housekeeping, we eat around 800 million of them each year.

The Christmas food that is been considered as good luck when it is been eaten one of on each of the 12 days of Christmas is Mince Pies. A mince pie can be regarded as sweet pie that can be traced to English origin, this pie is usually a mixture of dried fruits as well as spices.

To spread the joy, it was tradition in England that each member of the family gave the mixture a stir, while making a wish. And if you wanted to be ensure good health and happiness in the upcoming year, you should eat one mince pie every day for the Twelve Days of Christmas, from Christmas Eve until the 5th of January.

Better still, go with the traditional serve, where everyone eats their mince pies with the little foil cup perched under their chin (useful to catch any major pieces of debris, but not too prissy), and then put the Hoover round later.

The Early Origins. The history of mince pies can be traced back to the Middle Ages. During this time, mince pies were known as "Christmas pies" and were filled with a mixture of minced meat, fruits, and spices. These pies were often shaped like a manger to symbolize the birth of Jesus.

So all traditions come from somewhere, right? And the tradition of leaving mince pies and milk for Santa actually originated in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, December 6th is Festival of St. Nicholas, with children all over the country leaving food offerings for the Saint, in exchange for presents.

Mincemeat is a combination of chopped dried fruits, spices, sugar, nuts, distilled spirits, a fat of some type and sometimes meat. The name is a carryover from 15th century England when mincemeat did indeed have meat in the mix; in fact, the whole point of mincemeat was to preserve meat with sugar and alcohol.