Page "Mince pie" Paragraph 6

In his essay The Life of Samuel Butler, Samuel Johnson wrote of " an old Puritan, who was alive in my childhood ... would have none of his superstitious meats and drinks.

" Another essay, published in the December 1733 issue of The Gentleman's Magazine, explained the popularity of " Christmas Pye " as perhaps " owing to the Barrenness of the Season, and the Scarcity of Fruit and Milk, to make Tarts, Custards, and other Desserts ", but also possibly bearing " a religious kind of Relation to the Festivity from which it takes its Name.

" The author also mentions the Quakers ' objection to the treat, " who distinguish their Feasts by an heretical Sort of Pudding, known by their Names, and inveigh against Christmas Pye, as an Invention of the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, an Hodge-Podge of Superstition, Popery, the Devil and all his Works.

" Nevertheless, the Christmas pie remained a popular treat at Christmas, although smaller and sweeter, and lacking in post-Reformation England any sign of supposed Catholic idolatry.

People began to prepare the fruit and spice filling months before it was required, storing it in jars, and as Great Britain entered the Victorian age, the addition of meat had, for many, become an afterthought ( although the use of suet remains ).

Its taste then was broadly similar to that experienced today, although some 20th-century writers continued to advocate the inclusion of meat.