On 12/13/07 8:10 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
According to the Daily Telegraph's online advent calendar http://tinyurl.com/2bw9cb for 13th December, mince pies were either coffin shaped or manger shaped with a pastry baby on top prior to 1650. I can understand the manger bit but can anyone enlighten me as to the significance of the coffin shape? Sorry if this is an obvious question!
"Coffin" used to be a general term for any sort of box or case, and was the word used for closed pastry shells. Sometimes "coffins" were disposable casserole dishes made of pastry, and weren't intended to be eaten.
I suspect that somebody who was looking for a filler scraped together some loose information and jumped to a conclusion.
-- Joy Beeson http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/ http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather) west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A. where To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
