SC - Where's the beef, or, where's the sacrificial lamb?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

rcmann4 at earthlink.net wrote:

> Now let me ask you a question about an area in which I am fairly
> ignorant.  According to the diagrams I've looked at, the shoulder of
> the cow contains various cuts of chuck.  Isn't that a tough cut,
> more suited to stews than to roasts?

I was quite intrigued by the break between the modern dictionaries'
translation of espalda as "back"; IIRC, the equivalent word in French is
espaldron, source of the Anglo-French pauldron, which is the
shoulder-cop on a suit of plate armor, and these pieces tend to be
named, to some extent, for the body parts they protect. At what point
the term shifted either to or from "back" to or from "shoulder" is an
interesting, and perhaps, important question: the back could well refer
to the rib section, the loin (lower back), or perhaps even the sirloin
(lower back and part of the hips) of the animal. The shoulder would
pretty much have to be chuck, at least on beef.

One possibility is that the limited weight of the piece of meat, the
dry-marinade, and the pressing under a weight, may compensate for using
a more or less "dry-heat" cooking method. It may cook slowly for a
longish time, considering the piece isn't huge. Could this be early
barbecued beef? If the espalda really is the back, you could certainly
roast it at a moderately high heat with no problems.

I had assumed "no mayores" to help solve the riddle; I read it as "not
adult", rather than "no more [than]". Somehow I had the idea that if the
beef were young enough, you could easily roast a piece of the chuck. In
theory, not impossible by any means, but just not evidently supported by
the language.

The pressing under the weight may help to tenderize, too. I wonder if
this may have originated as a substitute for parboiling for humoral
purposes, that whole thing. Beef is supposedly warm and dry already, so
perhaps not.   

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com