Humbug Pie

It is easy enough today to look back on the Twelfth Night balls, the Christmas mumming, the great fruitcakes, the pies stuffed with game and other culinary tours de force and forget that this was not the Christmas savored by all. In England, in the old days of communal feasting, there was a certain seasonal leveling out of riches: the better-off in the village saw to it that the neediest were helped, and it was not unusual for widows or the elderly to carry off second or third helpings from the manor table to tide themselves over the holiday season.