"Is it illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas Day?" (2024)

FAQs

Is it illegal to eat a mince pie on Christmas Day? ›

Some speculation has it that mince pies were illegal to eat on the day of Christmas. However, the only Christmas Day where eating mince pies was illegal was 1644 due to December falling on a day of fasting. Eat all of the mince pies to your heart's desires!

While some believe that one mince pie each day for the twelve days of Christmas will be sufficient, there are other schools of thought that suggest eating as many as you can on Christmas Eve to cash in on the lucky streak.

Why do we eat mince pies at Christmas? Mince pies were originally made to celebrate Jesus. They were oblong in shape to represent the manger that Jesus slept in as a baby and have a 'pastry baby Jesus' carved into the pastry. Traditionally one mince pie is eaten for the Twelve days of Christmas.

Symbolism and Tradition

Mince pies have long been associated with Christmas and are an integral part of holiday celebrations in many countries. In England, it is believed that eating mince pies on each of the twelve days of Christmas brings good luck for the coming year.

Oliver Cromwell banned mince pies and other Christmas treats in the 1650's in order to tackle gluttony. The ban didn't survive for long and the act of eating mince pies is now just a myth.

It was reported that in Oliver Cromwell's England, all festive celebrations, (including consuming mince pies and Christmas puddings), were contributing towards gluttony. The festivities were made illegal as part of a fasting period, but luckily the ban was lifted when Charles II took to the throne in 1660.

A mince pie (also mincemeat pie in North America, and fruit mince pie in Australia and New Zealand) is a sweet pie of English origin filled with mincemeat, being a mixture of fruit, spices and suet. The pies are traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world.

Christmas in numbers

Brits eat approximately 175 million mince pies over Christmas, using 175 tonnes of aluminium packaging. The UK uses 227,000 miles of wrapping paper each year.

If you eat a mince pie each day over the twelve days 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.

They're absolutely fine cold, and if you condition yourself to only liking them warm, you can kiss goodbye to street vendor mince pies, the ones peddled for charity by kids in libraries, and probably a decent share of your office haul (employers don't want to see you at the microwave more than at your grind).

Why is it called mince pie? ›

The reason mincemeat is called meat is because that's exactly what it used to be: most often mutton, but also beef, rabbit, pork or game. Mince pies were first served in the early middle ages, and the pies were quite sizeable, filled with a mixture of finely minced meat, chopped up fruit and a preserving liquid.

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.

As the pies were often baked in a rectangular shape, people began to associate them with the manger Jesus had laid in. Soon dough effigies of the baby Jesus were placed on top of the pies to reinforce the religious connection.

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.

People in the South West eat the most mince pies in the UK, according to research by bakery chain Konditor. Having surveyed 2,000 people, the London-based company found that, on average, each person in the South West eats 24 mince pies across the festive period.

It's a rare American I've bumped into who likes Christmas cake or Christmas pudding. Even rarer is one who likes mince pies. But in England, Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without mince pies.

According to tradition, the Christmas Eve dinner must not contain meat.