Old Fashioned Sweet Delights: Spiced Mincemeat Meringue Pies (Recipe) (2024)

FAQs

Did original mincemeat pie have meat in it? ›

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.

They're filled with a delightful blend of minced meat, suet, and an array of dried fruits such as raisins, currants, orange peel, prunes and figs.

Mincemeat

Mince pie / Main ingredient

The "mince" in mincemeat comes from the Middle English mincen, and the Old French mincier both traceable to the Vulgar Latin minutiare, meaning chop finely. The word mincemeat is an adaptation of an earlier term minced meat, meaning finely chopped meat. Meat was also a term for food in general, not only animal flesh.

By the 18th century it was more likely to be tongue or even tripe, and in the 19th century it was minced beef. It was not until the late Victorian period and early 20th Century that mince pies dropped the meat and had all fruit fillings (albeit with suet). Even today there are traditions associated with mince pies.

“A mince pie is a sweet pie of British origin, filled with a mixture of dried fruits and spices called "mincemeat", that is traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world (Wikipedia).

Versions containing animal fats should be cooked before use but those including butter can be used as they are, perhaps stirred into an ice cream mixture. You could even serve an especially tasty version with whipped or clotted cream as a sumptuous festive topping for warm scones.

Mincemeat pie is a dish that isn't very common in the American kitchen, which can lead to some confusion for cooks, even those on the Allrecipes staff.

That stuff keeps forever, I've used jars that were several years out of date with no ill effects. Enjoy :) It might be a bit stiff but you can just use that as an excuse to mix some brandy in to loosen it!

Mincemeat isn't difficult to make, but it has a lot of ingredients, which can make it expensive to produce in small batches, and it requires at least a day's advance planning to let the ingredients sit.

Is mincemeat pie good for you? ›

Mince pies are high in calories, saturated fat and sugar because of the pastry case, as well as the suet and sugar in the mincemeat filling. If you're baking your own, only use pastry for the base and leave the top open, just add a small star of pastry or use a lower-fat pastry, such as filo.

If she was feeling lazy, back then Mrs. Smith's made a perfectly acceptable frozen mince pie, so we often had those, too.

Mince pies have been known under several names over the years. Christmas pyes indicate their popularity at this time of year, shrid pies refer to the shredded suet and meat, crib cakes which allude to baby Jesus in his crib, and wayfarer's pies, as they were a traditional treat served to travelling visitors.

In American English, "mincemeat" is a sweet pie filling (I think it's mince pie in BrE) which originally contained some meat but in modern times it is generally made mostly of apples and raisins. It's not very popular anymore, but you sometimes see it around Christmas time.

They became a popular treat around the festive period thanks to a tradition from the middle ages, which saw people eat a mince pie for 12 days from Christmas day to Twelfth Night. Doing this was believed to bring you happiness for the next 12 months.

King Henry V had mince pies made as early as in 1413 for his coronation celebration on April 9. During this period it would have been made with various meats, game birds, boiled eggs and spices, which were very rare and extravagant ingredients of the time as this was a pie for celebration.

Ingredients: Water, Corn Syrup, Raisins, Dried Apples, Molasses, Corn Starch Modified, Distilled Vinegar, Dried Orange And Lemon Peel, Salt, Spices, Beef, Fruit Pectin, Natural Flavor.

Today, the default expectation is that mincemeat is meatless—but again, not necessarily vegetarian, because it may still contain suet. If you pick up some mincemeat in stores this winter, check the ingredients. If you're catering to vegetarians, make doubly sure there are no animal products in there.

Although the filling is called mincemeat, it's actually made from dried fruit and spices. They were traditionally savoury and did often contain meat in the past, but thankfully, today, that doesn't still happen.