The modern receipts are similar, and the less meat they contain the better. The following is a well-tried and much approved one, and has been handed down in the same family for generations: “A pound of beef suet, chopped fine; a pound of raisins, do. stoned; a pound of currants, cleaned dry; a pound of apples, chopped fine; two or three eggs; allspice beat very fine, and sugar to your taste; a little salt, and as much brandy and wine as you like:” a small piece of citron in each pie is an improvement, and the cover or case should be oblong, in imitation of the crache or manger where our Saviour was laid, the ingredients themselves having been said to have some reference to the offering of the wise men. James the First’s dislike to the look of a naked sword took its rise from about the time of his birth; but Lord Feesimple, a cowardly character, in ‘Amends for Ladies,’ one of Field’s plays, attributes his lack of courage to an incident during that extensive chopping season, the necessary precursor of minced pies. “I being in the kitchen, in my lord my father’s house, the cook was making minc’d pies; so, sir, I standing by the dresser, there lay a heap of plums; here was he mincing; what did me? I, sir, being a notable little witty coxcomb, but popp’d my hand just under his chopping-knife, to snatch some raisins, and so was cut o’er the hand; and never since could I endure the sight of any edge tool.” There is a superstition that in as many different houses as you eat minced pies during Christmas, so many happy months will you have in the ensuing year; you have only therefore to go to a different house each day in the Christmas to ensure a happy twelvemonth, a simple receipt, if effectual. Something like this is mentioned in ‘Dives and Pauper,’ by W. de Worde, 1496, where the custom is reprobated of judging of the weather of the coming year by that of the days of Christmas. This was also prognosticated by the day of the week on which Christmas Day fell, and there are some old Christmas songs referring to it. In the ‘Golden Legend,’ of the same printer, is a more laudable prejudice, “That what persone, beynge in clene lyfe, desyre on thys daye a boone of God; as ferre as it is ryghtfull and good for hym; our lorde at reuerēce of thys blessid and hye feste of his Natiuite wol graūt it to hym.”