[Sca-cooks] Brawn

Alexander Clark alexbclark at pennswoods.net
Fri Dec 3 04:13:02 PST 2010


<delurk>
If I may pick a few brains . . .

Does anyone here know of any evidence of the default meaning of
"brawn" (said of foodstuffs) in later Middle English? Did it mean
"boar flesh", or did it already mean something like head cheese? And
did it refer to any specific body part? (Wiktionary thinks it used to
refer especially to buttocks and hams.)

One inconclusive clue that I'm looking at is menus, where one (for the
coronation of Henry IV) has "braun blanke leche", while another (for
"the stalling of John Stafford, Archibisshoppe of Caunterbury") has
"Blanke singuler leche." ISTM that the most likely recipe for both of
these is "blaunche brawen".

-- 
Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark



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