I remember when I was in the grocery business (75-06) and our produce dept would make a huge display every year with all the different ingredients used to make fruit cakes and mince meat pies. You would be surprised at how much they sold. I`m sure it is not as popular today as it was back when I was younger. It was and is a food from another time when people used everything they had. My mother never made a fruit cake, but she did make a minced meat pie which I never ate.

We had minced meat pie as a kid, I never tried it.

I remember my mother making minced meat pie once. Everybody tried it and nobody took two bites. God it was bad.