text: Mincemeat is a mixture of chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits and spices, and formerly beef suet, usually used as a pie or pastry filling. Mincemeat formerly contained meat, notably beef or venison. Modern recipes replace the suet with vegetable shortening.
  Etymology
  The "mince" in mincemeat comes from the Middle English mincen, and the Old French mincier both traceable to the Vulgar Latin minutiare, meaning chop finely. The word mincemeat is an adaptation of an earlier term minced meat, meaning finely chopped meat.  Meat was also a term for food in general, not only animal flesh.