London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
A very good day to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Tuesday December 9th, 2025.
And here it is, your daily London fix.
Musing here.
Pretending we’re over there.
Well, a few of these will make it over there.
But by way of getting a little bit of variation into this introduction,
How does the help put it these days in American restaurants?
You know,
that energetic self-introduction.
“Hi! I’m David and
I’ll be taking care of you today.”
Cue George Bernard Shaw’s
immortal words,
“the Brits and the Yanks,
two peoples divided by a common language.”
“Hi, I’m David and I’ll be taking care of you” –
to British ears that sounds like the start of a hostage situation.
In America, it’s standard.
Excepting of course the American server –
I think that’s the word these days –
who treats you like he’s your therapist. “How’s your day going so far?”
You just came in for a sandwich
but now you’re talking about your childhood.
Anyway, let’s close. Something different today. Something tasty.
Something wonderfully British. Something historically peculiar.
Something gloriously festive.
A little four act number that I’m going to call The Merry Mystery of the Mince Pie.
And yes, it’s got an accompanying London Walk. Ann’s Foodies London Christmas Special. She calls it Eating Christmas.
So. You ready? Here we go.
We’re diving into the tiny, tinselly world of that great seasonal enigma:
the mince pie.
Now – fess up –
did your shoulders just relax a bit? Even hearing the words “mince pie” sends a little warm spark
down the spine.
Because to the British, the mince pie isn’t just a pastry –
it’s Christmas in edible form.
It’s memory you can bite into.
But oh, try explaining that abroad.
To Americans, the mince pie is a semantic booby trap.
They hear “mince pie” and
immediately picture a beefy,
steam-billowing dinner-in-a-crust.
The moment you tell them
there’s no meat in it –
not since the 18th century –
they look at you with suspicion normally reserved for cult leaders and people who pronounce “herb” with an ‘h’.
The French?
Well… we’ll get to the French.
But first –
cue the time machine, please –
we’re going medieval.
Curtain up on Act I:
A Pie with a Past.
Here’s the thing,
the earliest mince pies really did contain meat.
Proper meat.
Medieval Christmas tables groaned under “shred pies” and “chewettes” – mixtures of minced mutton,
suet,
dried fruits,
and newly arrived luxury spices. Cinnamon,
nutmeg,
cloves,
saffron –
all the exotic plunder brought back from the Crusades.
Medieval cooks,
utterly intoxicated by spices,
chucked them into everything.
If it moved, they spiced it.
If it stayed still, they spiced it twice.
The result?
Imagine a shepherd’s pie and a Christmas pudding eloping,
running off together,
and raising a large,
oddly fragrant family.
That was your medieval mince pie.
And the shape!
Early versions were coffin-shaped.
Yes – “coffin” was the actual culinary term for a big pastry casing.
Nothing says “Merry Christmas”
like handing round a little edible sarcophagus of spiced meat.
By Tudor times –
Henry VIII loved them, by the way;
not exactly a shock –
mince pies were sprawling affairs. Huge.
Monumental.
A Tudor mince pie could feed
a small hamlet or a large Henry.
Then along came the Puritans.
(Cue the Organ chord of doom.)
Oliver Cromwell,
Lord Misery of Misrule,
decided mince pies were far too much fun
and attempted to ban them –
along with Christmas itself.
The mince pie became a symbol of decadent excess.
A kind of pastry-based protest.
Eating one was almost
an act of rebellion.
Thank heavens the Puritans didn’t last, and the mince pie did.
By the Georgian and Victorian eras,
the meat quietly
slipped out the back door –
nobody missed it –
and the pies shrank into the
small,
jolly,
star-topped darlings we know today. What remained was the sweet,
boozy,
spice-rich filling
we now call mincemeat –
a name that confuses foreigners, delights Brits,
and really ought to come
with a footnote.
Act II: The Taste of Christmas
So what does a mince pie taste like? Here’s your sound-bite:
It tastes like Christmas has climbed
into your mouth and
lit a scented candle.
Warm spice.
Bright citrus.
Boozy fruit.
Buttery pastry.
A dusting of icing sugar that
looks like Dickensian snowfall.
A good mince pie doesn’t just taste nice – it tastes nostalgic.
And the best ones – whisper it –
have a homemade wobble.
A lid that’s not quite perfect.
Mince pies are like people:
the slightly imperfect ones have
all the character.
Act III: The Export Problem
Here it comes,
the international adventure.
The mince pie simply does not travel well
conceptually.
Explain it to an Italian and
they’ll politely ask why
you’ve filled a tart with
Christmas panettone that’s
been left in a rum barrel.
Explain it to a German and
they’ll wonder why you didn’t just make stollen.
Explain it to an American
and they’ll say, “So… it’s not meat? But it’s called mince?”
And you’ll say,
“No, it’s fruit.”
And they’ll say,
“Why is it called mince?”
And you’ll say,
“Tradition.”
And they’ll say,
“That’s not an answer.”
And they’ll be right.
But the French.
Ah. The French.
Paris – culinary capital of the world –can produce a “meal foy” mille-feuille so crisp it snaps like a winter twig.
Paris can give you éclairs,
macarons,
tartes citron,
and pastries that look like
architectural models.
But mince pies? Non.
Absolument pas.
For years, British expats
survived December
thanks to the Parisian Marks & Spencer – a shining Fortnum-in-Exile on the Boulevard.
It stocked everything:
Christmas puddings,
festive biscuits,
and the precious, precious mince pies.
Then – catastrophe – it closed.
Picture the scene:
bewildered Brits
wandering the boulevards, rattling empty foil cases like tin cups.
“S’il vous plaît, monsieur…
have you any mince pies?”
And the Parisian replies,
“Mais non.
But may I offer you a small,
elegant tart
with precisely three perfect raspberries arranged by a man in a chef’s jacket worth more than your car?”
And so the British diaspora in Paris
is left bereft,
staring at patisserie windows
full of splendour –
none of it Christmas.
A city of light,
a city of gastronomy –
and not a mince pie in sight.
The irony is so thick you could spread it on toast.
Act IV: The Lone, Triumphant Pie.
And yet – despite the confusion,
the bans,
the cultural misfires,
the Parisian pastry gulf –
the mince pie endures.
It has outlasted kings,
Puritans,
reformers,
rationing,
and the closure of M&S in Paris.
It’s Britain in pastry form:
eccentric,
charming,
occasionally puzzling,
and always ready to cheer you up.
A mince pie is
a little edible time machine.
Bite in, and you’re tasting centuries.
So this December,
when you lift that foil case,
when you breathe in that spicy,
citrusy waft,
remember:
you’re not just eating a festive snack. You’re participating in a historical saga. A culinary epic.
A pastry with more backstory
than most dynasties.
And if you happen to be in Paris –
well – maybe pack a few in your suitcase.
Share one with a French friend.
Watch them try to make sense of it.
It’s hilarious.
And anyway –
isn’t that the magic of Christmas?
A little mystery.
A little merriment.
And a pie that makes the whole season taste just right.
You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from www.walks.com.
Home of London Walks, London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £25 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do to attract and keep the best guides in London – you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating: the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative – is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor (and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Jack the Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes barristers, doctors, geologists, museum curators, a former London Museum archaeologist, historians, university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actors, a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)… well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar and the familiar new.
And on that agreeable note… come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.
And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.