What Is Mincemeat Pie, Exactly?

If you're American, when you think of traditional Christmas food, your head is likely filled with visions of ham, eggnog, and cookies. However, there's a world of international Christmas dishes, from figgy pudding to pernil—and British mince pies are not to be missed. But what is mincemeat, exactly?

Delicious and filling meat pies of all sorts are devoured in English pubs all year round. During the holiday season, a specific version, called mincemeat pie, emerges dominant. Though recipes for mincemeat pie vary greatly, it is broadly a semi-savory pie made from ground meat, often beef or lamb, stewed with fruits like raisins, cherries, apricots, and apples, and traditional pie spices and flavorings, like cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, brown sugar, or molasses.

Mincemeat pie is a decidedly English food and can be traced back to the 11th-century Crusades. Armed with warm spices from the Middle East, the crusaders added much of said spice to the filling to preserve and improve upon the likely not-so-fresh meat. King Henry V took favor to the dish and began ordering it be served at Christmas, among other moments of celebration, like coronations and weddings. A flavorful booze like rum or brandy is often incorporated, as is suet, the hard fat of beef or lamb found around the loins and kidneys, which can be purchased in stores. Using exactly three spices was thought to represent the gifts brought by the three wise men to a newborn baby Jesus and became a key part of mincemeat pie-making.

Though by no means ubiquitous in the United States, mincemeat pie was brought to New England, along with many other English recipes and cooking traditions, by Puritan settlers. Because they largely rejected Christianity and, in turn, Christmas, mincemeat was adapted as a Thanksgiving or generic wintertime dish in North America but has since regained its rightful place as Christmas fare.

Admittedly, tastes have changed since the first mincemeat pie was baked, and the concept of meat and fruit in the same dish might be a confusing — or even unappetizing — proposition to some. The beauty in mincemeat lies in its openness to interpretation, and if the thought of raisins or cherries with beef is too much to handle, one can cut them and take mincemeat pie in a more savory direction, with ingredients like mushrooms and peas. To rightfully call it mincemeat, consider leaving some of the pie spices in, especially nutmeg and clove, which impart a warm, unique flavor that works particularly well with lamb or mutton.