SC - Brawn Question

[Ted Eisenstein]

>> In general, I think it means muscle meat--not from a specific kind of
>> animal. I'm not sure if it has a narrower meaning in the passage you
>> quote.
>The seasonal nature of brawn in the quoted passage, in conjunction with
>info on the seasonal nature of animals such as capons, etc., suggests
>that it is considered not to be the meat of those animals discussed,
>which may well support the boar idea. I suspect at some point the
>meaning had changed. I agree that fourteenth and fifteenth century
>English recipes seem to suggest it is the meat of various animals,
>usually specified when it matters, such as the brawn of capons teased
>into "doust".
>
>If I had to guess at when the earliest recipes I've seen appear to be
>referring to boar or even some other pigmeat (and usually the whole
>animal is involved), I'd say that the mid-to-late sixteenth century is
>when the shift occurs from "brawne of capons or pigeons" to " to roull
>up a piglet into a collar of brawne".

My server seems to be confusing things: some threads are crossing and
recrossing at random intervals, so I'm not quite sure what's going on with
this paticular thread - but. . . . 

The OED defines brawn as "fleshy part, muscle", and dates it back to 1325;
"the muscle or flesh of animals as food", to 1340 (with a reference to Household
Odinances to "the braune of hennes, or of capons" to "c 1440"); "the flesh of
a boar", to 1377 (" Langl., P. Pl. B. xiii. 62 Wombe-cloutes and wylde
braune & egges yfryed with grece", and "c 1386, Chaucer, Franklin's T., 
526 Brawen of the tusked swyn"); and as "a boar (or swine_ as fattened for
the table" to 1400 and the Morte d'Arthur, however it's spelled ("Brokbrestede
as a brawne, with brustils fulle large", and the next quote for this particular
definition is "1601 Ord. . Househ. (1790) 288 The Serjeant of the Larder hath
for his fee..the feete cut off at the first joynt of every braune spent in
the Queens house.")
Way at the top, before it starts the definitions, it says "The specific sense
'boar's flesh' is exclusively of English development, and characteristic of
English habits" - which confuses me a bit, unless they're talking about English
vs. American habits. . .