As most of you know, I love old
forgotten food words, especially when they are a reminder of foods or meals or
related concepts which are no longer part of our lives. Another type of
forgotten food word applies to a regular dish which we still make, but for
which we have a different (and usually less picturesque or evocative) name. I
came across a couple of examples of these recently, and want to share them with
you.
A cookery book published in London in
1837 with the title of Two thousand five
hundred practical Recipes in Family Cookery includes the following two
examples of names you don’t see in cookery books any more. (But then, how many
modern cookery books can boast such a number of recipes? Methinks we have
traded comprehensive content for glossy pictures.)
BOMBARDED VEAL is a fillet of
veal having the bone taken out its place supplied with a rich stuffing of which
fat scraped bacon forms a great part, with various condiments to which are
added cream and egg; besides which cuts are made into the fillet at about an
inch apart, into some of which is put a portion of the stuffing, into others
boiled and minced spinach, and into others chopped oysters and beef marrow. In
this state having a veal caul wrapped round it, it is placed in a pot with a
small quantity of water and baked. The time necessary for its being done will
of course depend upon the weight of the fillet. See BAKING. We pass no opinion
on this dish.
BEEF TREMBLANT. This is
another of those dishes long known and described. It is not compatible with our
design to comment upon every term employed in cookery; that would be an endless
task; but we may here, once for all, observe that many writers on our art have
been extremely careless in regard to the orthography of its terms. Thus, we
find this dish has been called beef tremblonque and beef tremblent; we have given the proper French orthography; but why not call it
at once trembling or shaking beef? Oh, that is so vulgar! Change the word and
how fine it becomes! The following is found in substance in most of our cookery
books from Mrs. Glasse downwards to those of the present century. Take a
brisket of beef and tie up the fat end tightly; boil it in water seasoned with
salt and a handful of allspice, to which add two onions, two turnips, and a
carrot, gently, for six hours; in the mean time melt a piece of butter in a
stewpan, to which add two spoonsful of flour, and stir till the mixture is
smooth; put to it a quart of gravy, a spoonful of catchup, two glasses of wine,
and some carrots and turnips, cut as for a haricot; stew all gently till the
roots are tender; season with pepper and salt. Skim all the fat clean off, put
the beef into the dish and pour the gravy, thus made, over it. You may garnish
with pickle of any sort. Of course you will serve it up with proper vegetables,
such as greens, carrots, or potatoes, or all of them. Note.—Some will make a gravy instead of the
above, with chopped parsley, an onion, pickled cucumbers, a walnut and capers
with a pint of gravy, butter rolled in flour, and pepper and salt, boiling the
whole for ten or more minutes.
The first usage recorded in the Oxford
English Dictionary to ‘bombarded’ in a culinary sense appears in Hannah
Glasse’s Art of Cookery, published in
1747, and refers to this exact dish of stuffed veal. No explanation of this culinary
usage is made, but I assume it is intended to invoke the similarity of the shape
of the dish with a bomb. You have to admit that ‘Bombarded Veal’ sounds more
interesting than ‘Stuffed Veal Fillet.’
The
OED has one reference for ‘trembling beef’ dated 1806, but seems to be lacking
in confidence about its meaning or origin:
trembling beef n. some dish of boiled
beef (? obs.); cf. trembling-piece n.
1806 A. Hunter Culina (ed. 3) 238 Trembling Beef. Take a brisket
of beef, and boil it gently [etc.].
On
looking at the associated usage of ‘trembling piece,’ the OED says:
trembling-piece n.
[French pièce tremblante] a
joint of beef so interlarded with fat as to quiver.
1833 Wilson Fr. & Eng. Dict. at
Tremblant, Trembling-piece.
On looking at the recipe above for Beef Tremblant, I unconvinced
that the dish would be quaveringly tender and, but I am totally convinced that
it sounds far more tempting than Pot Roast. What do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment