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Updated: June 19, 2025
In No. 417 of this Journal it is chronicled that John Bunyan scrupled to eat mince-pies, because of the superstitious character popularly attached to them; but it would appear from an anecdote sent to us by a correspondent, that if this was true at all of the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, he must have received new light upon the subject at a later period of life.
While the company sat round the yule-log blazing on the hearth, eating mince-pies, or plum porridge, and quaffing a bowl of well-spiced elder wine, the mummers would enter, decked out in ribands and strange dresses, execute their strange antics, and perform their curious play. So the wintry days passed until Twelfth Night, with its pleasing associations and mirthful customs.
There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig.
Up betimes, to my Lord Duke of Albemarle by water, and after some talke with him about business of the office with great content, and so back again and to dinner, my landlady and her daughters with me, and had mince-pies, and very merry at a mischance her young son had in tearing of his new coate quite down the outside of his sleeve in the whole cloth, one of the strangest mishaps that ever I saw in my life.
The fragrant bohea flowed as freely as champagne would have done in a less pious locality; ethereal sponge-cakes and transparent currant-jellies became too common to excite comment; the surrounding country was heavily drawn upon for fatted calves, chickens and turkeys, and mince-pies were so plenty, that observing children wondered if the Governor had not decreed a whole year of special Thanksgiving.
A large plate of mince-pies, flanked by smaller ones filled with cakes of various shapes and sizes, stood temptingly conspicuous on the table. Sausages were frying in a pan on the store, and a large coffee-pot sent forth its steam, at once savoury and inviting.
How glad little Mitty was to see that bag of meal! and what a nice time she had of it that night, sitting on a little cricket before a blazing hickory fire, and eating the buttered cakes that her mother handed down to her from the table. Oh, you city children couldn't get up such a frontier appetite for your fricassees, and mince-pies, if you tried a lifetime.
No further outbreak took place until the appearance of the second course, which consisted, as the ingenious reader may suppose, of the plum-pudding, now in a grilled state, and the remanent of mince-pies from yesterday's meal. Maria, I thought, looked particularly guilty as these delicacies were placed on the table: she set them down hastily, and was for operating an instant retreat.
The first course was removed, and then came a wonderful plum-pudding, and such dishes of mince-pies!
"I had a button boy too, and he was a what d'ye call it oh, a RASCAL, that was it; he was a rascal, and liked the currants in mince-pies, so he took them all out, and ate them up, and put in glass beads instead. So when the people began to ear, their teeth crunched against the beads! Ah! bah! how nasty it was!"
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