mincing

thumb|Meat grinder in operation. Mincing is slicing, not grinding/extruding|alt=table top machine with handle, meat is inserted in a top aperture and emerges minced from the side aperture thumb|Minced carrots thumb|Minced Lamb and mutton|lamb Mincing is a culinary technique in which ingredients are cut into small, uniform pieces. Mincing was originally a manual process using knives or mezzalunas. The invention of the meat grinder or mincer in the 1850s made mincing faster and easier.

==Etymology== To mince in the culinary sense is "to cut up or grind (food, especially meat) into very small pieces, now typically in a machine with revolving blades". It is first attested in 1381: "Nym onyons & mynce hem smale & fry hem in oyle dolyf" ("Chop onions small and fry them in good oil"). The word is borrowed from the eleventh-century Anglo-Norman and Old French : to cut up food into small pieces. The equivalent modern French term, , dating from the thirteenth century, derives from , "axe".