Potted histories: mince pies - Telegraph December is almost upon us, and plates of golden mince pies will soon be stacked on Christmas party tables throughout the land. These delicious treats have been a feature of Britain's festive celebrations for over half a century: supposedly, we guzzle down a staggering 370 million of them every year. Turn the clock back, however, and they would look and taste remarkably different. Today, the word for the pies" traditional filling, mincemeat, simply means dried fruit mixed with spices and a (hopefully generous) splash of booze. But it once referred to exactly what it sounds like: meat which has been minced. Mixing animal products with fruit and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg became popular in the medieval period, when returning Crusaders introduced new flavours to British kitchens: it was also, of course, a thrifty way of making a little mince go further, or disguise the taste of meat that was past its best. By the time the Tudors had got their hands on the throne, "mincemeat pies," or "shred" or "shrid" pies as they were often known, were a well-established savoury treat. Even Henry VIII supposedly liked to nibble on them - when he wasn't beheading his wives, that is. The meat used to fill these comforting pies ranged from rabbit to mutton and everything in-between, though beef seems to often have been favoured. Many 16th century recipes called for "neat's" or beef tongue, while later, boiled beef became the go-to animal addition. "Boil a tender, nice piece of beef - any piece that is clear from sinews and gristle; boil it till it is perfectly tender," advises one 1833 recipe, adding that the cook must be "very careful to get out every particle of bone and gristle." Are your tastebuds tingling yet? By the mid-Victorian period, however, meat fillings were less common. In her legendary 1861 book Household Management, Mrs Beeton tellingly gives a number of mincemeat recipes, only one of which calls for meat. Today, beef suet is the only ingredient left which hints to the pies" protein-packed predecessors - though even that is increasingly left out by cooks put off by the idea of including the fat found around a cow's viscera in their favourite festive treat. It's not just the taste of mince pies which has shifted. Although today they are invariably small and round, the shape of them has gone through as many transformations over the years as you have Christmas jumpers. In the Tudor period, the pies were often larger, and rectangular in shape - contemporary recipes refer to a "coffin" pie crust, which back then simply meant a basket or box . By the 17th and 18th centuries, the pies had shrunk, but were made in various quirky shapes: in the same way that that keen cooks today browse the cookie cutters in their Christmas Lakeland catalogue, housewives of the period could have amused themselves by reading about all the latest mince pie shape trends. Exactly how the mince pie became synonymous with Christmas is unclear. Some suggest that the three chief spices - cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves - are a nod to the three gifts of the Magi, while others claim that the old rectangular shape was meant to represent Christ's cradle. The food historian Ivan Day believes these stories are nothing more than "fairy tales." What cannot be denied is that by the 17th century, mince pies were so intertwined with Christmas revelry that the Puritans saw fit to condemn them. And by the time of the Restoration, poor Samuel Pepys's wife and maids "sat up till four" one Christmas Eve making the pies. Even then, it seems, no Christmas was complete without them.