LE BUGUE, France, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- While Americans have their pumpkin pie tradition at Thanksgiving, there doesn't seem to be a specific food that celebrates Christmas. In Europe, on the other hand, there is furious competition between nations to trump one another with the best of the best in cakes or tarts or puddings -- as each considers their own specialty to be.

The Italians revere panettone, considered dry and dull by the Germans, who prefer their damp gingerbreads. Along with the Austrians, Dutch, Swiss and Scandinavians, they bake endless cookies in different shapes, flavored predominantly with aniseed or cinnamon. The Greeks and the Scots make very similar buttery, crisp and crumbly shortbread cookies, the Greeks dredging theirs with confectioners' sugar that snows on everyone's festive clothing.

It won't surprise anyone that the French have more than one offering. There's the national Galette aux Rois containing a tiny hidden pottery figurine that could break the teeth of the unsuspecting and Christmas tree-shaped towers constructed of filled profiteroles and glazed in caramel. But different départements (states) have different versions of fruit pies, spice cakes and nut tarts.

While the British relish a Christmas cake baked months beforehand and weighty enough with dried fruits to make suitable ballast for breaking windows (which is what some revelers feel like doing after several days incarcerated with family), it's the mince pie that takes the crown in that nation.

The name confuses most other countries. Mince: Does that mean it's a meat pie? Is it, then, an appetizer or a dessert? "No" to the first and almost "no" to the second. The meats mince pies are certainly filled with are sweet meats -- that is, chopped apples, dried fruits, peel and nuts, macerated in brandy for several months in advance of Christmas.

And several rituals are attached to their making and their eating.

Before the mincemeat mix is put into the oven to bake, each member of the family must give it a stir in a clockwise direction and make a wish. The mincemeat is then stored until the Christmas period, when it fills little crust-lidded pastries. These two or three-bite mince pies are offered to all visitors to the house at any time of day to go with a glass of port or ginger wine or sherry.

For good luck in the coming 12 months, you should eat one in each of 12 houses over the 12 days of Christmas that end with taking down of the tree on Jan. 6. (Leaving the tree up later than that is to court bad luck.)

And you should eat them in reverential silence or you will bring further bad luck upon yourself. As with each new food arrival of every season, you must make a wish with your first bite of the very first one you taste.

You may think you don't want to eat even one. But according to FoodProductionDaily.com, Britain's largest commercial producer is predicting sales of more than 140 million this year to Britain's 60 million population. The figure doesn't include other, smaller manufacturers or artisan bakeries -- or the families that make their own.

And it probably won't have included the 200 mince pies it reports that Gus the camel apparently munched his way through, washed down by seven cans of Guinness, when he gate-crashed his equestrian center's Christmas party.

There's one American, at least, who could be called a mince pie fan. Sonya Thomas won a U.K. speed-eating competition chomping back 46 mince pies in 10 minutes. Barry Donovan would not have been impressed. In February this year the Englishman gained his place in the Guinness Book of Records for gulping down three pies in 1 minute, 23 seconds.

You can make a passable mince pie with ready-rolled pastry and a jar of commercial mincemeat. But try this traditional walnut tart from the Périgord region of France, good with a jug of cream or vanilla ice cream.

-- Tarte aux Noix

-- Serves 8-10

-- 1 roll of ready-made pie pastry

-- 5 fluid ounces table cream

-- 4½ fluid ounces water

-- 11 ounces superfine sugar

-- 7 ounces walnut halves

-- 4 tablespoons sweet butter

-- 2 tablespoons sugar

-- Preheat oven to 425 F.

-- Heat the cream in a heavy-bottomed pan.

-- Put the water and sugar in another, boil hard for about 10 minutes, to make a golden syrup, shaking the pan to distribute the sugar.

-- Remove from heat and cool for 2 minutes, then carefully pour in the hot cream, whisking hard to froth it together.

-- Add the walnuts and butter and return to a low heat for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, then pour into a 9-inch loose-bottomed flan case lined with the pastry.

-- Bake for 25 minutes, then sprinkle the remaining sugar on top, return to the oven and bake a further 15 minutes, taking care the top doesn't burn.

-- Cool, and serve at room temperature.