Peta vegan recipes christmas

A Feast Without Flesh: The Radical History of Vegan Christmas Pies in 17th-Century England

The kitchen is thick with the scent of nutmeg and slow-cooked apples, the kind that clings to wool shawls and lingers in the rafters for days. It is December 1652, and Margaret Cleybrooke—a widow of modest means in the market town of Bury St Edmunds—is pressing a lattice of pastry over a deep dish filled with minced dates, raisins steeped in sack wine, and a secret handful of saffron threads, smuggled in by a Dutch merchant who docked at Ipswich last autumn. Outside, the air is sharp with the first frost of an English winter under Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan regime, where the celebration of Christmas itself is technically illegal. But Margaret is not making a “Christmas pie” today. Officially, this is a peta—a word derived from the Old English pete, meaning a small container, though in her hands, it is something far more subversive: a pie that requires no meat, no lard, no butter from the dairymaids’ churn, yet still satisfies the hunger for festivity in a time when both meat and merriment are rationed by the state.

This is not a pie born of abundance, but of resistance. And its story is not just about what goes into it, but what it leaves out—and why.

Where the Vegan Christmas Peta Comes From—and Why It Was Invented

The peta (later corrupted to “petty pie” or “pasty” in some regions) was not originally a vegan dish. Its roots stretch back to medieval England, where small, handheld pies were a practical solution for a population that ate with its hands, often on the move. But by the mid-17th century, two forces collided to transform it: the rise of Puritan austerity and the quiet persistence of England’s vegetarian underclass.

When Cromwell’s government banned Christmas celebrations in 1644, declaring them “pagan” and “popish,” the prohibition extended to the traditional boar’s head, roasted swans, and spiced beef pies that had long dominated the Yuletide table. For the gentry, this was an inconvenience; for the poor, it was a crisis. Meat was already a luxury, and now even the ritual of sharing it was forbidden. Enter the peta—a pie that could be filled with whatever was cheap, storable, and, crucially, did not require slaughter. Dried fruits from the Levant, nuts from the New World, and spices from the East Indies (smuggled past customs officers who turned a blind eye for the right coin) became the new symbols of Christmas defiance.

The dish was also a lifeline for England’s religious dissenters. Groups like the Diggers, who believed in communal living and rejected the exploitation of animals, had long experimented with meatless diets. For them, the peta was not just a workaround but a statement: proof that a feast could be rich without bloodshed. By the 1660s, even after the Restoration returned Christmas to legality, the vegan peta endured in households where meat was scarce or morally objectionable. It was a dish born of necessity, but it carried a quiet radicalism—one that would echo centuries later in the modern vegan movement.

The Ingredients as Historical Artefacts

Every component of the peta tells a story of trade, conquest, and adaptation. These were not the ingredients of an isolated island, but of an empire in the making—one that was already reshaping the world’s palate, even as it policed its own celebrations.

Dried fruits (raisins, dates, currants): The backbone of the peta’s filling came from the vineyards of the eastern Mediterranean and the date palms of North Africa, arriving in England via Venetian and Ottoman traders. By the 17th century, currants (small, seedless raisins) were so closely associated with English cooking that they were called “raisins of the sun” in merchant ledgers—though in reality, they were “raisins of Corinth,” smuggled past Catholic trade embargoes. When Cromwell’s regime restricted luxury imports, dried fruits became a black-market commodity, traded in back alleys of London’s Cheapside. Their sweetness was not just flavour; it was defiance.

Nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts): Almonds, introduced to England by Roman occupiers, were a status symbol by the 1600s—ground into marzipan for the wealthy, chopped coarse for the poor. Walnuts, native to Persia but naturalised in Europe, were called “English nuts” by the time of Shakespeare, though their oil was still used in medieval England as a butter substitute during Lent. In the peta, nuts provided fat and texture without dairy, a trick learned from Sephardic Jewish cookery (many of whom had fled to England after the Spanish Inquisition). The Puritans, who saw marzipan as a “popish indulgence,” would have scoffed—but in a peta, nuts were practical, not decadent.

Spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, saffron): The most politically charged ingredients of all. Nutmeg and cinnamon arrived via the Dutch East India Company, which had seized the Banda Islands in 1621, slaughtering or enslaving the native population to control the trade. A single nutmeg could buy a London labourer’s weekly wages; saffron, grown in Essex but originally from Persia, was worth its weight in gold. When Cromwell’s government taxed spices to fund his wars, housewives like Margaret Cleybrooke used them sparingly—not for flavour alone, but to signal that this pie, however humble, was still a feast. The scent of cinnamon in a peta was a whispered reminder of the world beyond England’s shores, and the empires that had shaped its kitchen.

Suet (or its vegan stand-in): Traditional pies relied on beef suet for a flaky crust, but the vegan peta substituted rendered mutton fat (if available) or, more commonly, a mix of breadcrumbs and nut oil. This was not a modern health choice but a medieval one: the poor had long stretched suet with grain, and monks in Cistercian abbeys had perfected eggless pastry using wine and oil. The Puritans, who associated butter with Catholic excess, ironically made vegan pastry more mainstream by demonising dairy.

Christmas Under the Ban—When and Why This Dish Is Made

The peta was not just a dish; it was a ritual of resistance. It appeared in three key contexts, each with its own unspoken rules:

1. The Clandestine Christmas (1644–1660): With carols banned and churches locked, families gathered in private homes to eat petas by candlelight. The pies were small enough to hide under a cloth if soldiers knocked, yet rich enough to feel like a celebration. The filling’s spices masked the absence of meat, while the lattice crust—traditionally a sign of wealth—was a joke at the Puritans’ expense: Look how fancy our fasting is.

2. The Digger Communal Feasts (1649–1651): The Diggers, a radical group who established egalitarian farming communes, served petas at their winter gatherings as proof that a meatless diet could sustain a community. Their leader, Gerrard Winstanley, wrote that “the earth was made a common treasury for all”—and their pies, filled with foraged nuts and windfall apples, were a literal taste of that ideal.

3. The Restoration’s “Penny Pies” (1660s onward): After Charles II restored Christmas, the peta lost its political edge but gained popularity as a street food. Vendors sold them outside theatre districts (where Puritan laws had once shut down plays) and at frost fairs on the frozen Thames. The vegan version, now called a “Lenten pie” or “poor man’s mince,” became a staple for those who couldn’t afford meat—but the memory of its rebellious past lingered in the spices.

The peta’s format was perfectly suited to subversion. Unlike a roasted joint, which announced itself with smoke and scent, a pie could be eaten in silence. Its crust sealed in the aromas, so the feast stayed hidden until the first bite. And because it could be made ahead and eaten cold, it required no hearth—just a shared secret and a willing mouth.

How Migration and Empire Changed the Peta Forever

The peta left England in the holds of ships and the pockets of migrants, transforming as it travelled.

The Caribbean: Rum and Rebellion Enslaved Africans on sugar plantations adapted the peta using molasses (a byproduct of the very industry that enslaved them) and tropical fruits like guava. The resulting “sweet hand pies” became a rare moment of autonomy—something they could make without relying on rations from the plantation owner. In Jamaica, the peta merged with the turnover, a Cornish-style pastry brought by indentured servants, creating the prototype for modern Jamaican patties (though the vegan version, filled with callaloo and coconut, is now a Rasta staple).

North America: The Shaker Gift The Shakers, a celibate Christian sect that migrated from England to America in the 1770s, brought the peta with them as a “pure” food—one that didn’t rely on animal suffering. They replaced the wine with apple cider and the suet with rendered bear fat (later, vegetable shortening), creating a version that was both austere and strangely luxurious. Their petas, sold at harvest festivals, funded their communes—and inadvertently spread vegan baking techniques across New England.

India: The Colonial Paradox British officers in 19th-century Calcutta demanded petas from their Indian cooks, who substituted ghee with coconut oil and filled them with khoya (reduced milk) or, for Hindu clients, sweetened lentils. The result was the gujiya, a deep-fried pie now central to Holi celebrations. The irony? A dish invented to avoid meat became a vehicle for dairy—until Jain and vegan adaptations in the 20th century brought it full circle.

The Modern Vegan Movement: From Survival to Statement By the 1970s, the peta had been forgotten in England, eclipsed by meat-heavy mince pies. But when the modern vegan movement sought historical precedents, food historians like Colin Spencer (author of The Heretic’s Feast) resurrected it as proof that plant-based feasting was not a new fad but a lost tradition. Today’s vegan petas, filled with squash and miso or chocolate and beetroot, are a far cry from Margaret Cleybrooke’s version—but the spirit of defiance remains.

How to Make a 17th-Century Vegan Christmas Peta

This is not a “modernised” recipe. It is a reconstruction, based on manuscripts from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the diary of a Norfolk housewife named Rebekah Winche (1654). The methods are exacting because the original cooks had no margin for error: a failed pie meant a ruined Christmas.

Method:

Begin with the crust, because in 17th-century England, a bad pastry was a moral failing. Combine the flour and olive oil in a wooden bowl, rubbing the oil into the flour until it resembles “sand in an hourglass” (Rebekah Winche’s phrase). Add the cold water gradually, mixing with a knife—never your hands, which would warm the dough and make it tough. The goal is a crust that “breaks like a dry biscuit” (a virtue in an era before forks). Roll it thin, about 3mm, and cut circles with a tin template or the rim of a tankard. Chill the rounds while you make the filling.

For the filling, soak the dried apples and raisins in the sack wine overnight. The next day, drain them (reserving the wine) and chop fine with the dates, almonds, and breadcrumbs. Heat the mixture in a brass cauldron with the sugar, spices, and a splash of the reserved wine until it reduces to a “stiff jam” (Winche’s term). The saffron should turn the filling the colour of “a king’s robe,” she notes—because even in austerity, a feast should look like one. Stir in the rosewater last; too much, and it tastes like soap.

To assemble, place a spoonful of filling on each pastry round. Fold and crimp the edges with your thumb and forefinger, pressing hard to seal—“lest the Devil get in,” as the saying went. Cut a small cross in the top to let steam escape (and, some said, to bless the pie). Bake at 180°C for 25–30 minutes, until the crust is “the colour of a chestnut horse” (i.e., deep golden brown).

Serve at room temperature, because in a house with no oven heat, that’s how they’d have eaten it. The first bite should be a contrast: the crust shatters, giving way to the dense, wine-soaked filling. The nutmeg hits first, then the slow burn of cinnamon, then the chewy resistance of the dates. It is not “delicious” in the modern sense. It is serious—a pie that tastes like history.

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