Mincing is a culinary technique in which ingredients are cut into small, uniform pieces. Mincing was originally a manual process using knives ormezzalunas. The invention of themeat grinderor mincer in the 1850s made mincing faster and easier.
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".[1] 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").[2] The word is borrowed from the eleventh-centuryAnglo-Norman andOld Frenchmincer, mincier: to cut up food into small pieces.[1] The equivalent modern French term,hacher, dating from the thirteenth century, derives fromhache, "axe".[3]
For centuries mincing was done using kitchen knives, sometimes including a multi-bladed, double-handled chopper known most commonly in English as amezzaluna (Italian for "half moon") and in French as anhachoir.
The mincing machine was invented in the 1850s and described byScientific American as "a cutting or mincing machine, operating by means of a cylinder, or cylinders, having tapering grooves extending from end to end".[1]
The first mincers were hand-cranked; the meat or other food to be minced was fed into the top aperture and propelled through the grinders, emerging as mince through a die at the outlet. Electrically powered mincers have since become available. Professional mincers have dies of varying sizes, most domestic models have two: the larger die grinds coarsely; the smaller, more finely.[4] For food that needs to be particularly finely minced it may be necessary to put it through the machine twice.[4]
The food writerElizabeth David found that a mezzaluna "produces far superior minced meat to that done in the mincing machine, for it does not squeeze out the juices" adding that "few people would care to bother with it nowadays".[5] The cook and food writerJane Grigson agreed:
Larousse Gastronomique records numerous uses for a mincing machine, including the preparation ofchicoryfondue,[7]fricadelles,[8]haggis,[9]hamburgers,[10] mushroom fondue,[7]pelmeni,[11] potato fritters,[12]potted meat[13] andrillettes.[14]
Several cooks and food writers prefer finely chopped meat to minced for some recipes. Forcottage pie, Grigson andFelicity Cloake do so,[15] as, forsteak tartare, do many chefs.[16] David prefers finely chopped meat to minced for pâtés.[17]
In the US, the process is usually referred to as "grinding", and the product as "ground meat".[18]
