Meat Pie: A History

I want to share a positively pleasant pie piece from the Chicago Reader's Cliff Doerksen, in which he explores the history of the weirdest American pie: the mince meat. My father eats this pie on Thanksgiving, although it is a vegetarian version out of a can, which my mother opens while pinching her nose. She has always told me, "Don't worry, honey, there is no meat in a mince meat pie." The statement always struck me as both bizarre and reassuring as my father shoveled in forkfuls of opaque brown with flecks of red texture (figs, not tendons, I realize now). Turns out, mince meat used to be made of meat, and it looks pretty gross.