The Beloved Seasonal Pie Marie Callender's Got Rid Of, But Sara Lee Still Makes

Nothing says holidays quite like pie. With pumpkin and pecan for Thanksgiving (make yours early!), and more pumpkin and also apple for the winter holidays, there are endless ways to have a slice of the season. One type of pie that has long been associated with Christmastime is mince pie. With such ingredients as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, orange zest, dried fruit, and sometimes brandy, it tastes a little like a cup of mulled wine with a crust. It's like fruitcake in pie form if fruitcake actually tasted good. Taking a bite of mince pie is like stepping into a Hallmark movie or a Charles Dickens novel where the stockings are hung by the chimney with care and Jack Frost is nipping at your nose.

Marie Callender's used to put out a mince pie during the fall and winter. It came with a side of rum sauce and was an important tradition at Christmas for many people. Unfortunately, that pie was phased out years ago, though no one is quite sure exactly when it disappeared like a snowman under a heat lamp.

For those who still need mince to make merry at Christmas, you're in luck. Sara Lee has a delicious frozen variety that you just have to bake and eat. It's chock full of apples and raisins and has a shelf life longer than the lifespan of a mouse (the creature that wasn't stirring in "T'was the Night Before Christmas"). Sara Lee mince pies keep for 545 days in the freezer so you can even save one for next Christmas. These pies are available year-round, so pick one up anytime. Not a Sara Lee fan? Mrs. Smith's also does a frozen mince pie.

There's a reason you may have heard mince pies called mincemeat pies, and it's not in the sense of nutmeat or something similar. No, they were called mincemeat because there was meat. As in beef, pork, mutton, or lobster (the list goes on).

Traditional mincemeat pies date back to the 1100s when British soldiers brought back Middle Eastern cooking practices after the Crusades. Resourceful cooks in those days would preserve their highly valued stock of meat by dumping it in a pie with other ingredients, often sweet ones such as sugar and fruit, which kept the meat from spoiling.

Mincemeat pies are now a major holiday tradition in Britain, but they're also fairly popular in the United States. Eventually, the use of meat in these pies fell by the wayside, and you now hear the name mince used as often as mincemeat, which also avoids any confusion about whether the mince pies are meatless (they almost always are these days). Most come with fresh fruit such as apples, dried fruit like raisins or currants, citrus, warm spices (cinnamon and the gang), and sugar.

Some mince purists make their homemade pies by soaking the fruit (both dried and fresh) in alcohol, such as rum or brandy, for months at a time. True traditionalists might even throw in some meat or veggies, but rest assured that most modern day, commercially produced mince pies likely won't come with any meat or alcohol in them. If you opt for a frozen Sara Lee or Mrs. Smith's pie, you're guaranteed to be meatless under the mistletoe as well as booze-free.