By Rafe Calder
Modern mincemeat contains no meat. According to Wikipedia, it is made from dried fruits, nuts, apples and spices. The dish it comes from was a different animal altogether.
What was in it
Wikipedia’s article on the mince pie lists the early fillings as neat’s tongue (that is, cattle tongue), beef, mutton and tripe, and says fish could be used too. Its article on mincemeat says traditional recipes contain meat, notably beef or venison, partly as a way of preserving meat before modern methods. It says spices such as clove, nutmeg, mace and cinnamon were common in late medieval and Renaissance meat dishes. Sugar changed the dish, the article says, making it less a savoury dinner course.
Over the 19th century the meat dropped out. The pie article says recipes increasingly omitted it, and that by the following century the pie had its modern small, round form. The mincemeat article says commercial versions are now primarily without meat, and that many people still make the traditional meat-based kind for the holidays. That last claim carries a “citation needed” tag, so treat it as a claim.
Where it came from
The sources do not settle it. The pie article says the origin is disputed and names three theories without choosing one: that it came from Cumberland, that it grew out of a medieval dish called the “chewette”, and that crusaders brought it back in the 11th century. Each theory is attributed to a different author in the article, and we have not read those authors. We report the three and endorse none.
The earliest written traces are also loose. The article says The Forme of Cury, dated 1390, has a “tartes of flesshe” recipe, which it calls a possible forerunner and not a mince pie. A receipt book of Elinor Fettiplace from 1604 includes a mince pie recipe. Gervase Markham’s recipe for “minc’t pies” is cited as 1615, though the article’s own reference gives 1623. The mincemeat article cites an 1545 cookery book for a pie recipe but does not call it the first. In 1666, the article says, Samuel Pepys’s diary mentions his maids making mince pies.
The shape
The pie article says the crib shape is treated as folklore, and that the earliest reference to a crib shape dates from the seventeenth century. It says British pies are now small and round, and that North American ones are large and meant for sharing. We found no source in this round for any claim about the shape’s meaning, and we make none.
The ban that was not
You will hear that Cromwell banned mince pies. The pie article says some sources claim Parliamentarians banned them during the Interregnum, 1649 to 1660. It then says a writer for English Heritage describes the ban as a myth. It adds that the Puritans did ban Christmas in 1647, but that no food was banned. Cromwell’s name does not appear in the article.
What this tells us is narrow. A law against Christmas existed, according to Wikipedia. A law against the pie did not, according to the writer it cites. We have not seen the English Heritage piece itself, so the claim reaches us second-hand.
The Victorian pie
Wikipedia’s mince pie article says that in 1854 Alexis Soyer’s yearly recipe for Queen Victoria used 300 pounds (140 kg) of beef. By 1861 Mrs Beeton’s book carried two recipes, one with meat and one of fruit, and both still used suet. The meat version, quoted in both articles, called for 1.5 pounds (0.68 kg) of lean beef, 3 pounds (1.4 kg) of suet, 2 pounds of raisins and 3 pounds of currants. The mincemeat article says Victorian England rehabilitated the preparation as a traditional Yuletide treat.
What is in the pie now
The pie article says the traditional fat is beef suet, though vegetable substitutes can be used, and the pastry is normally shortcrust for base and lid, though the lid can be puff. The mincemeat article says modern recipes often swap the suet for vegetable shortening or other oils. For a buyer this is the one practical point: a pie with no meat may still contain beef fat. The pages do not say how a label should show it, and we do not say either.
Wikipedia gives two figures for Britain. An estimated 175 million mince pies were eaten in the UK in 2025, and in a 2025 poll 44 per cent of people said the mince pie epitomised the taste of Christmas. The article does not name the pollster, so we treat both numbers as claims.
Dates in order
- 1390: The Forme of Cury, “tartes of flesshe”, according to Wikipedia.
- 1545: a cookery book with a pie recipe, according to Wikipedia’s mincemeat article.
- 1604: Fettiplace’s mince pie recipe, according to Wikipedia.
- 1615 or 1623: Markham’s “minc’t pies”, according to Wikipedia, which gives both.
- 1647: Christmas banned, with no ban on food, according to Wikipedia.
- 1666: Pepys’s maids make mince pies, according to Wikipedia.
- 1854: Soyer’s recipe for Queen Victoria, according to Wikipedia.
- 1861: Mrs Beeton’s two recipes, according to Wikipedia.
Side by side
The Markham date is 1615 or 1623, depending on the article’s text or its reference. The origin is Cumberland, the chewette or the crusaders. The ban is a claim in some sources and a myth in the English Heritage writer’s view. We resolve none of the three.
What kind of sources these are
Two Wikipedia articles, which anyone can edit, both citing cookery books and a heritage-body writer that we did not read directly. Nothing here comes from a museum or a food historian by name. The whole pack therefore rests on one encyclopaedia, and a second source is wanted before anyone treats the detail as settled.
Questions a buyer would ask
Does the filling contain suet, and is it beef suet? Is the pie vegetarian? Is the lid shortcrust or puff? The pages we read answer the second only by implication, and none gives a labelling rule.
What we left out
We left out the liquids and spirits the pages name, because we avoid alcohol topics. We left out the Thanksgiving use in the north-eastern United States, the preserving claims and the American pie sizes, because they belong to another country. We left out prices and brand names.
Quick answers
Did mince pies once contain meat? Yes, according to Wikipedia: early fillings included neat’s tongue, beef, mutton and tripe.
Did Cromwell ban mince pies? Wikipedia cites a writer for English Heritage who calls the ban a myth, and says Christmas was banned in 1647 but no food was.
Do mince pies contain suet? According to Wikipedia, the traditional fat is beef suet, though vegetable substitutes can be used.
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