When I first started shopping at the Dunnes grocery store here, I stumbled across a jar of "mincemeat" in the baking aisle while looking for ingredients to bake Damon's birthday cake. I was puzzled, wondering why a meat product would be found alongside flour, nuts and cake mixes. This is also where they display all their raisins, whereas our stores usually put the raisins in the snack aisle with granola bars and crackers. Raisins are a major ingredient in baking here, as I've found with the Christmas Pudding (or plum pudding) recipes (see "Irish Christmas Traditions #2..." post).
Mince pies are a British tradition, festive little pies consumed during Christmas and New Year's. Historically, they did contain meat, but nowadays, the only remnant of the original meat is the inclusion of suet (raw beef or mutton fat). Typically, the filling is now made entirely from fruit-based mincemeat containing dried fruit such as raisins, currants, glace cherries, apricot, candied peel; spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg; nuts such as walnuts or chopped almonds; suet; and some kind of alcohol, usually either brandy or rum.
Here's some great history on the Mince Pie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mince_Pie
This weekend, we heated some in the oven and topped them with ice cream. They were quite tasty.
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