Most people have encountered mincemeat in the classic Thanksgiving pie, where it is a mixture of dried fruit, chopped nuts and apples, suet, spices, and either rum or brandy. When the ingredients of mincemeat and plum pudding are compared, it is obvious they are closely related. Plum pudding also has dried fruit, spices, and suet and is usually soaked in either rum or brandy. The major difference is that plum pudding also has breadcrumbs and/or flour, which allow it to be boiled into a dense cake.
Given this commonality, it is not surprising that both dishes trace their heritage back to medieval times, around the 15th century. Mincemeat pies were originally small, savory (i.e. not dessert) pies, containing chopped meat or liver, and were mixed with hardboiled eggs, ginger, and sweetener. It was Henry VIII’s favorite pie. The original plum pudding also contained meat and was savory, and it never contained plums. Originally it contained prunes, then raisins. Both prunes and raisins were commonly called “plums”, as used by Samuel Johnson in his famous dictionary.
Mincemeat and plum pudding were both banned in the 17th century during Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan regime, as “sinfully rich” and “unfit for God fearing people”. Part of mincemeat and plum pudding’s reputational issues were the number of superstitions associated with these desserts – superstitions which had a smell of paganism to them as do many Northern European holiday customs which can be traced back to winter solstice festivals. Specifically, various items were baked in plum puddings. The discoverer of a silver coin would experience health and happiness, of a ring would get married, of a thimble would remain a spinster, or of a button would remain a bachelor. Mincemeat also had its superstitions – if you ate one mincemeat pie at a different house on each of the twelve days of Christmas, you would experience good luck for each of the 12 months of the coming year.
Both classic mincemeat and plum pudding have gone somewhat out of fashion, largely for two reasons. People do not have the time or desire to prepare them ahead, as is required to maximize flavor. Traditionally, a Christmas plum pudding should be made during Advent, but then stored for one entire year to be served during the following Christmas. Mincemeat also needs to be aged; early New Englanders made large batches of mincemeat, which were then stored in crocks sealed with a layer of lard.
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