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

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"Is it illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas Day?"? ›

The prohibition of minced pies

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!

There is a tradition of eating one mince pie each day over the 12 days of Christmas from Christmas Eve to 5 January.

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.

This is one of those 'facts' that everyone knows – dour old Puritan Oliver Cromwell hated merriment and fun and laughing and dancing and so banned mince pies when he was Lord Protector because nothing is more guaranteed to bring pleasure and enrage a killjoy than a little pagan sweet pie dusted with icing sugar…

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.

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.

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.

How many mince pies are eaten in the UK? The UK eats approximately 175 million mince pies annually. One million mince pie cases equate to one tonne of aluminium material, meaning the use of 175 tonnes of aluminium for their packaging.

So all traditions come from somewhere, right? And the tradition of leaving mince pies and milk for Santa actually originated in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, December 6th is Festival of St. Nicholas, with children all over the country leaving food offerings for the Saint, in exchange for presents.

Can I eat mince pies cold? ›

Many people enjoy mincemeat pie served warm, but it can also be served cold. The recipe below features both mini pies or you can make two nine-inch pies. You can pair mincemeat pie with ice cream, custard, or low-fat Greek yogurt for a sweet treat that's sure to impress!

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.

In the US, there are no laws regulating what foods fictional characters can consume, transport or distribute. Mince pies are not commonly consumed in the US outside of the New England region. Perhaps if more Americans were familiar with them they would be banned. Or perhaps not, who can know.

The tradition comes from the time of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, when mince pies were banned at Christmas, along with other tasty treats. Cromwell wanted to tackle gluttony in England. He also argued that Christmas contained too many superstitions of the Roman Catholic Church, which he hated.

Some Puritans objected to the celebrations as there was no mention of such things in the Bible, and therefore couldn't be justified as they were not rooted in scripture. Many also felt that the Christmas festivities had simply become too drunken and debauched. Presbyterians in Scotland had outlawed Christmas in 1640.

In 1647, the Puritan-led English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas, replacing it with a day of fasting and considering it "a popish festival with no biblical justification", and a time of wasteful and immoral behaviour.

According to tradition, the Christmas Eve dinner must not contain meat. A popular Christmas Day dish in Naples and in Southern Italy is female eel or capitone. A traditional Christmas Day dish from Northern Italy is capon (gelded chicken). Abbacchio is more common in Central Italy.

While it's true that in 1917 the Codex Iuris Canonici had actually prescribed abstinence from meat and fasting on the eve of the Pentecost, the Assumption, All Saints' Day and Christmas, the Costituzione Apostolica Paenitemini signed in February 1966 by Paul VI overwrote these indications and established that fasting ...

Mince Pie Superstition

It was thought lucky to eat one mince pie on each of the twelve days of Christmas (ending with Epiphany, the 6th of January). Alternatively, to refuse one would lead to bad luck.