[Sca-cooks] medieval steaks

[Terry Decker]

> On Mar 16, 2006, at 1:44 PM, Terry Decker wrote:
>
>> To quote myself from a column I did for Serve It Forth!,
>>
>> "There is no doubt that steak is a Medieval dish, as the following 
>> recipe from Harleian Manuscript 279 atests:
>>
>> To make Steyks of venson or bef. Take Venyson or Bef, & leche &  gredyl 
>> it up broun; then take Vynegre & a
>>
>> litel verious, & a lytil Wyne, and put pouder perpir ther-on y-now,  and 
>> pouder Gyngere; and atte the dressoure
>>
>> straw on pouder Canelle y-now, that the steyks be al y-helid ther- wyth, 
>> and but a litel Sawce; & then serue it
>>
>> forth.
>>
>> We know that in this instance, steaks were greased, cooked, and  served 
>> in a spiced wine sauce.
>
> In light of a subsequent post, I was wondering about this. Are we 
> assuming the steaks were greased because we don't want them to stick,  or 
> is there some confusion about the meaning of the verb "to leche",  which, 
> I always understood, means to slice? As in, cut your hunk of  meat into 
> steaks...
>
> Adamantius

Looking in the OED, leche is a form of leach meaning "to slice," which is 
probably the most likely in this context.  A second meaning is "to wet," 
which may be what the translator was looking at.  I don't recall the source 
for the translation, but some problems I encountered in this column were 
fodder for a later column entitled, "Lost in Translation."

Bear