Take Away Christmas I Say, if You Take Away Our Pyes

After peeking in on Jack Horner in his festive corner yesterday, today we dive more fully - or at least stick our thumbs - into his Christmas pie itself. As mentioned, while the printed text of Little Jack Horner now only exists in eighteenth century works, he was almost certainly a concept and was heard in rhyme during the seventeenth. So, to examine his pie with the found and precious fruits it contains, it is worth examining a text from that period which treats plum-filled Christmas pie at considerable, even obsessive length. 

THE EXALTATION OF CHRISTMAS PIE As it was Delivered IN A PREACHMENT At ELY House appears in print in 1659. That is a year before the Restoration of the Monarchy, the English Civil War had concluded a decade earlier, Cromwell’s rule as Lord Protector ended the year before with his death and, specifically relevant to festive pies, laws against Christmas celebrations and feasting were still, at least technically, in force. 

This provides context for some of the stoutest defense and profuse praise that the author of the piece pours out: 

“Truly my beloved, I wonder at the little wit of our brethren, that persecuted these pyes so furiously in their pulpits: for can they undergo a worse persecution then to be eaten? Take away Christmas I say, if you take away our pyes, especially our plum pies. Truly my beloved, I wonder who invented these pyes, who ever twas, Gods blessing on his heart; surely twas a man for certainly a woman could never have so much wit. They talk of the invention of Guns and Printing; but doubtless the invention of plum pye doth far exceed it.” 

Any praise is at least partially muted, this being satire, but sexism included, these lines historically locate the work, as well as the place of pies in a period Christmas. 

The author of The Exaltation is given as one “P. C. Dr. of Divinity and Midwifery,” probably an early indication of the tough-in-cheek nature of the piece. Whether there was a P.C. at all is doubtful. Ely House would probably mean the Palace of the Bishop of Ely in London. There was not a Bishop of Ely at this point, as Parliament had abolished the office during this Interregnum period. A doctor of divinity preaching there may have been another wink as to what the reader was to expect, if a pamphlet praising of pie was not enough. 

(A later – 1728 - printing of The Exaltation, seen above, changes the location of the preachment or sermon to Lime-Street, which is probably more apt. Lime Street bounded and bounds Leadenhall Market in London, then and now known for selling fine foodstuffs.) 

Thus, despite the title, the praise is not what we really want to take from this mock sermon. It is the real details about the pies, and specifically plums in pies, that the writer uses to try to make his point. 

Like many actual preachments then and now, this writing works from a scripture or well-known saying. “And they did eat their Plum-pies, and rejoyced exceedingly,” prompts this author’s thoughts. To expound on this to the reader, the text rightly proclaims: “Here now we are to consider what sort of Plum-pye this was, and how many sorts of plum pyes there are.” 

What follows is an interesting listing of plum uses - “For you must know, my beloved, that there are more than one sort of plum pyes in the world.” 

“I my self have seen plums put into an apple pye, and it hath tasted exceeding savoury.” 

Straight forward enough; then comes contemporary meat pies that could contain the fruit in question. “There is your neats foot pye, there is your calves chaldron pye, there is your Lamb pye, there is your veal pye, and all these pyes have plums in um.” “Neat” was a word for cattle of various type and the foot would be boiled, deboned and minced. "Chaldron" is an old form of cauldron and this probably meant the pie was cooked in a vessel rather than in a free-standing pastry case.  If the spelling is off, "chaudron" meant entrails, often tripe. 

Finally, the focus of the piece: “but there is your Christmas pye and that hath plums in abundance, that is your Metropolitan plum pye, tis the cream of all plum pyes, and in brief there is no plum pye like it.” "Metropolitan" is here acting as a superlative of praise, with or without irony. 

In this spirit or performance of praise the writer moves into the details of the pie, which begins as a recipe then becomes part metaphor, part medical advice and part preparation for the afterlife. 

“Mark but the ingredients. There is first your Neats tongue boyld; Now you know a Neats tongue boyld alone with turneps how good it is; but being mixd with plums and spice, ther's your precious creature-comfort my beloved.” 

The author is partial to what we would call ox tongue today, that is clear but then moves into a religious analogy referencing the breastplate that the Biblical priests of Aaron wore. “The Ephod was beset with precious stones, and every one of them had their signification, and minced pyes are beset with plums and spice; and they have also their vertues and their Hieroglyphical significations. Your Neats tongue is the Hieroglyphic of pastoral authority. And therefore the Pope, who calls himself Christs Vicar hath got a cap, which is called a Miter, and this cap is made in the shape of two tongues.” 

The final ingredients mentioned have practical applications as well as being metaphoric jewels. “Your Currants are purgers of the blood and purifie the seat of Anger which is the spleen; therefore do they cause mirth in men, and revive the spirits of times. Your raisins being mixt with wormseed preserve a man in the grave, and destroy those crawling enemies of mankind, that would continually diet upon his flesh.” 

Praise, as well as real and mythical histories of pies, continues through the text but from these lines, we can piece together what at least one version of a plum-filled Christmas pie was in the years when Jack Horner began. It was similar in many ways to a mince pie today, except it had ox-tongue and plums. 

Tomorrow, I will share some specific recipes along these lines and a different Christmas bird pie that is big like Yorkshire. 

But in closing, in the word of the Exaltation: 

“Then let us Eat Christmas or Plum pye and rejoyce, Drink, Eat, and be Merry, Play at Cards and win Money, for that the dayes of the Year, are now like the dayes of Man, short and soon Vanishing.”