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— 138 —
long before, had recommended somewhat similar dishes for Christmas,—
" Brawn, pudding, and souse, and good mustard withal, Beef, mutton, and pork, shred pies of the best, Pig, veal, goose, and capon, and turkey well dressed; Cheese, apples, and nuts, jolly carols to hear As then in the country is counted good cheer."
This was hearty and hospitable fare, fit for the fine old gentry of England; but Massinger talks of something more luxurious, hardly to be surpassed in our scientific days.
" Men may talk of country Christmasses, Their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues, Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris, the carcases Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy to Make sauce for a single peacock."
The well-known minced or Christmas pie is of considerable antiquity, and many references are made to it in early writers. It is customary, in London, to introduce them at the lord-mayor's feast, on the 9th of November, where many hundreds of them appear; but this is an irregularity that some archaeological lord-mayor will, no doubt, by and bye, correct; at any rate they should be eaten under protest, or without prejudice, as lawyers say. They ought to be confined to the season of Christmas, and the practice of using up the remnant of the mince meat, even up to Easter, should be put a stop to by some of our ecclesiastical reformers. So much were they considered as connected with Christmas, that the puritans treated their use as a superstitious observance, and after the Restoration they almost served as a test of religious opinions. Bunyan, when in confinement and in distress for a comfortable |
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