meats

Beef or sheep-meat steaks, spread with herbs and spices, rolled or pressed together on a spit and roasted (Austin 1440, Noble Boke 1480, Wright 1857)

"England has no rival in the preparation of seasoned pork, and her famous bacon, the renown of which is enormous, constitutes one of the greatest discoveries in...

Thick bacon slices, boiled with sweetened stewed gooseberry (British Food Trust, etc

Grated potato and onion with chopped bacon, seasoned, bound with flour (and sometimes egg) and fried as a small patty. Particularly associated with breakfast in...

Bacon and egg batter. Either as bacon rashers dipped in egg-rich batter and fried, known at least since Wooley 1672 and Bradley 1728. Or, batter fried with chop...

Ribs from baconised pork, soaked to remove the excess salt, boiled until soft and served whole, bone-in, to be eaten with the fingers accompanied by mustard.

Parboiled gammon joint, skin removed, the fat scored and coated with sugar syrup, then oven baked with cider.

Whole hams are most traditionally cooked with at least the surrounding fat, and often the skin, adhering. The skin is scored in a criss-cross and a sweet glaze ...

Minced veal balls in mutton broth, served on sippets (WM 1658)

The term 'barbecue' possibly comes from the Spanish word for a raised trestle and is known as a method of cooking in England, especially in a social, outdoor ma...

A lamb or mutton chop taken right across the loin and therefore double sided.

Spiced beef prepared for the feast of St Bartholomew, August 24 in the Anglican and Roman Church calendars.

The lower portion of a long-jawed pig's cheeks, pickled in brine for 2-3 weeks, soaked in fresh water for 24 hours then boiled for 3 to 4 hours. Cooled, skinned...

Left-over cooked beef minced with bacon or ham, herbs and egg. Formed into small square cakes c½ins thick and fried in dripping (Acton 1845, Mrs.B)

Minced meat, crumbs of bread, onions, chopped parsley, etc., with seasoning, made up into balls, sprinkled with bread-crumbs, and fried (Walsh 1859, etc)

Chunks of beef cooked with celery seeds, cloves, onion and grated parsnip, supposedly imitating the flavour of hare. 'Food in England' by Dorothy Hartley (Hartl...

Beef chunks stewed in rich beer, often stout, usually with onions, herbs and a small amount of bacon, sometimes with mushrooms.

Boiled beef, pureed with rusk and spices, used as a sandwich filler.

Minced beef with breadcrumb and herbs, formed into balls or barrels and fried. Earlier descriptions suggest that rissoles were a garnish rather than a main dish...

Thin beef, spiced, rolled inside suet. Fried brown, then stewed (Moxon 1764).

Minced beef roll in pastry, baked (Mrs.B)

Minced beef topped with mashed potato, in scallop shells, grilled (Eaton 1822).

Pork scraps seasoned with chopped onions, sage, pepper and salt, formed into rough balls and baked or stewed.

Pork chops cooked in cream with mushrooms, onions and herbs.

'Bringing in the Boar's Head' for a Christmas feast. Engraving, English, 1871 (Colorized)

Large bacon joint boiled whole, often served with parsley sauce.

Bacon joint boiled with pepper, cloves, onion and other vegetables. Repeatedly mentioned in texts from the 1600s on, the method of prearation is rarely given, i...

Chopped veal and bacon with lemon and spice, pressed into a dish and baked, or formed into patties and fried (Acton 1845)

Lamb chops cut very thin, traditionally served cold with mustard.

A baked meat loaf of shredded roast beef with breadcrumbs, herbs, butter, cream and eggs (Acton 1845, etc)

Gobbets of meat in a thickened sweet sauce with spices (Cury 1390, Liber Cure 1430, Austin 1440, Noble Boke 1480)

Meatballs of minced pork and egg, rolled in flour and fried (Cury 1390)

Chopped beef and cabbage with whole egg and seasoning, boiled in a cloth. "It may as well be made by People of the lower as of the higher Rank." (Bradley 1728).

'Cabob' is used as a synonym for 'Kebab', in the sense of 'skewered meat' at least since J. Fryer's 'New Account of India and Persia' of 1698 ("Cabob is Rostmea...

Par-cooked mutton joint, scored deeply, rubbed with salt and cayenne, roasted. Served with pickled mushrooms (Acton 1845)

Minced lamb and onions under a crumble of flour, butter and cheese, baked.

Pork rubbed with salt and smoked continuously until, "The flitch ought not to be dried up to the hardness of a board, and yet it ought to be perfectly dry." Mr ...

The Cockatrice (or Cockagrice or Cokentrice) is an entirely mythical beast, said to be like a bird's body with a serpent's tail, and able to kill just by lookin...

Dough of flour and pork fat rolled around slices of fat pork, sometimes with currants, baked.

Any meat prepared for eating by being cooked or pickled, then rolled and tied, pressed and cooled to be cut into slices for eating.

General term for any thin piece of meat, whether natural or reformed. Sometimes a synonym for 'bacon rasher', known as far back as as Langland 1390 (Digby 1669,...

Salted beef joint. Known at least since Robert Burton's 'The anatomy of melancholy' of 1621; "Beefe..corned, yong, of an oxe." (OED)

Shredded, cooked salt beef set in its own fat and jelly. Usually canned as 'Corned Beef'.

Vegetables, including potato, roasted in a shallow dish with so that the upper layer becomes crisped. There are a great many variations of this dish, some havin...

Now a dish of minced beef in gravy, often with onion, below a substantial layer of mashed potato. Baked until the potato is crisped.

Rib of pork or lamb wrapped into a circle with bone spears extending upwards in imitation of a crown, roasted. The centre is often filled with stuffing or apple...

There are three distinct dishes known as 'Cumberland Pie' - the traditional Cumberland Game Pie dating back to the 18th Century, and intermediate form of the ea...

Dry cured pork leg, "well rubbed with salt, cured for one month and then matured for two." Cumberland ham is one of the very few English dry, or-semi-dry, hams....

There are three distinct dishes known as 'Cumberland Pie' - the traditional Cumberland Game Pie dating back to the 18th Century, and intermediate form of the ea...

Stewed mutton with hot spices.

Steak grilled with hot spices, mustard, cayenne etc (Soyer 1845, etc)

A skinless, long-cut, part-cured ham for cooking. Brined for 12 days, then aged 3 to 4 weeks. Sometimes offered cold smoked or cooked with cider and spices.

Beef chunks stewed with onions, wine and sausage-meat balls. (British Food Trust, etc)

Minced lamb and onions under a crumble of flour and butter, baked. Known only from tourist-associated publicity material since c1990.

The Dunmow Flitch is not a dish, but a side (flitch) of bacon awarded on Whit-Monday every four years, after a light-hearted 'trial' and great ceremony, to a ma...

Minced beef with spices and breadcrumbs formed into a cutlet shape and fried. A piece of macaroni may be inserted in to represent a bone and the 'cutlet' decora...

Bone-in mutton pieces boiled with cabbage in very little water. Juices thickened as gravy. Known from J.Salmon

Beef fillet, rolled around a filling of pate de foie gras, then wrapped with bacon and braised in stock.

A mutton leg stuffed with its own minced meat.

Claimed in the J.Salmon 'Favourite Herefordshire and Wye Valley Recipes' to be thin, fried, beefsteak topped with, or accompanied by, fried patties of mashed po...

Thins strips of beef dredged in flour, fried in butter then stewed in gravy (Mrs.B)

Original Receipt in 'A True Gentlewomans Delight' by 'WJ', 1653 (Gent.Delight 1653)

Ham fried until crisp and curled.

Gammon is a general term for pig muscle meat.

Grilled gammon steak served topped with fruit. Historically apricot was popular but pineapple is now more usual.

Stewed meat with apples and onions baked under a mashed potato and swede topping.

Two entire racks, or half-racks, of lamb chops, the ends trimmed, placed spine end down and facing each other so that the bone ends cross, imitating an honour g...

Shredded cooked ham with butter or cream, moulded and baked. May be glazed and decorated with capers etc. (Rundell 1807, etc)

Thin, beaten out, beef steaks spread with mustard and wrapped around a stuffing of chopped bacon, onion, parsley, breadcrumbs, suet, herbs, lemon and egg. Tied ...

Lemon and herb flavoured meat balls in a rich gravy.

Despite a half-hearted attempt to popularise it by Janet Street-Porter and Gordon Ramsay, horse meat remains very rare in England. It was promoted during the Se...

A beef round dry pickled in saltpetre [E252], sugar and spices, then baked (Mrs.B, White 1932)

Lamb chunks stewed with root vegetables, pearl barley, and herbs (British Food Trust etc)

Usually now refers to a large piece of bone-in top end of shank or shoulder of sheep-meat, marinaded with mint and cooked very slowly to the point where it almo...

Fried lamb chops in cream sauce with onions. Known as a specialty of Shropshire only from J.Salmon

Boned-out sheep meat leg stuffed with crab or lobster forcemeat with lemon and spices (Farley 1811, Grigson 1974)

Sheep meat roasting joint, commonly a leg, the surface pricked and chopped anchovy pieces inserted. Roasted.

Cooked lamb's livers with onion, pureed and made into a paste. Often with cider.

Very thin strips of meat, especially when prepared in a jelly. (Liber Cure 1430, Noble Boke 1480).

Small leg of mutton or lamb, boned out, stuffed and roasted.

Lean pork mince with breadcrumbs and onion, flavoured with sage. Baked as a loaf and served cold.

Veal "covered with a stuffing of sage and onions, then rolled, and roasted or broiled." (Acton 1845)

Braised Saddle of veal with ham slices inserted, coated with cheese and truffle puree, baked.

Piece of fried bread coated in foie-gras puree, on top a lamb cutlet, slice of truffle, piped Parmesan souffle. Baked 5 mins, served with buttered asparagus-hea...

Macon is mutton cured like bacon or ham. Although mutton has been salted and cured for centuries (Glasse 1747, etc), the name 'macon' appears to have been inven...

Beef boiled with onion studded with cloves, and vegetables (leek, carrot) and Maldon salt (J.Salmon)

Also known as 'Mock Brawn', a 'collared' dish.

Ham joint smeared with marmalade and baked.

Martlemass Beef by Crown & Queue at Seven Dials food market.

Minced meat with binder and seasonings made into balls, crumbed and fried (Walsh 1859, etc)

Small minced beef balls in egg-milk-flour batter, baked. A form of Toad-in-the-Hole

Minced beef with onion and seasonings. The word 'collop', in use from at least the 14th to the late 19th Centuries refers to a cut piece of meat, ready for cook...

Any type of roast sheep-meat joint or piece flavoured with mint.

Pork joint cooked like a goose - ie. stuffed with sage and onion and roasted in fat.

Thin beef slices stewed with herbs, lemon peel, onion, pepper, salt, nutmeg and claret. Thickened with burned butter. Served with diced lemon, beetroot, capers....

Roast sheep-meat usually with chopped or pureed celery (Moxon 1764, Mrs.B, etc)

Sheep-meat joint pricked all over and fresh Cockles inserted, roasted (Glasse 1747, Cleland 1755, Hutchins 1967, etc)

Original Receipt in 'A True Gentlewomans Delight' by 'WJ', 1653 (Gent.Delight 1653)

Beef or tongue pickled in "1 gallon of soft water, 3 lbs. of coarse salt, 6 oz. of coarse brown sugar,½oz. of saltpetre" (Mrs.B)

Boned breasts of lamb sandwiching a stuffing of onion, sausage-meat, breadcrumbs, sage and chutney, tied round and baked.

Minced meat flavoured with Cayenne and formed into patties with rice and breadcrumbs Rolled in breadcrumbs and fried.

(Beef Olives, Mutton Olives, Lamb Olives, Veal Olives)

Thin beef stewed with wine, shallots, marjoram and bacon. Bradley 1728, puzzlingly, has the cooking finished in a pan over over burning paper.

Meat slices ('collops') stewed with strongly-flavoured herbs. In older receipts this may be shallots, thyme, mace and parsley. More recently capers and vinegar ...

Minced beef and onion with tomato and baked beans under a lid of sliced potatoes sprinkled with cheese, baked.

Large bacon chops or gammon steaks stewed with mustard and cider.

Not venison, but leg of lamb, boned, filled with mushroom stuffing and marinated in Port with juniper and sweet spices, roasted (Johnstone 1828, Encyclopedia 18...

Cooked chopped pork with spices, set with jelly and gravy, formed in a small mould and turned out. Eaten cold.

Meat with fruit is a dominant theme of early English grand cookery, and prunes (dried plums) a commonplace ingredient. 'Countrey Contentments, or, The English H...

Large steak from the thick end of the short loin containing a T-shaped bone and large piece of tenderloin. The term appears to be of North American origin, know...

Lamb chops slit to form a pocket, stuffed with liver (commonly chicken and mushrooms. Breaded and fried.

A 19th Century dish of meat cooked below and potato mash above in a distinctive baking and service dish incorporating a trivet to separate the two. Known from s...

Rabbit, chicken or lamb pieces, parboiled in salted water, then fried in butter.

A small ball or patty of minced pork and spices, encased in dough and fried (Austin 1440)

Minced meat or fish with bread-crumb, egg, etc., rolled into a ball or small cake and fried. Known at least since 1706 (OED). Mollard 1802 uses a mix of fowl me...

Boiled griskin (the lean part of the loin of a bacon pig), baked.

Lamb leg is cusomarily roasted whole, bone-in, often with rosemary.

Pork joints are most traditionally roasted with the, scored, skin on, merely rubbed with salt (Francatelli 1852, etc)

Breast of lamb rolled around stuffing, often with mint, rosemary or other herbs, tied in place and roasted.

Essentially the same grilled minced beef-and-onion patties as the German 'Hamburger', but served with gravy.

Brisket of beef cured, either dry or wet, in salts with a small admixture of spices, commonly bay and juniper. Common sodium chloride salt is used, traditionall...

Beef joint soaked c5days in brine, boiled with carrots etc and dumplings. Served with mustard (British Food Trust, etc)

Meat from young sheep raised on the sea-washed grassland shores, notably of Lancashire and Norfolk.

Layer of buttered mashed potato over small-cut or thin-sliced meat. Baked. A precursor of cottage pie. (Acton 1845, etc).

A shoulder of pork roasted, with the blade bones cut into it.

Minced meat in thick gravy, often with a modest admixture of onions and other small-chopped vegetables such as carrot or peas, fully topped by mashed potato and...

Dried Hams for sale in Shrewsbury c1888

Legend has it that a King, delighted with the meat he had been served, and presumably well filled with sack or mead, knighted the loin of beef making it Sir Loi...

An old version of 'skewer'. Smith 1750 places alternate gobbets of bacon and stewed sweetbreads on his, all rolled in crumb and grilled. Bacon and oysters is al...

Beef soaked in brine and claret, drained 2-3 days, sliced into 3 and layered with mashed cochineal, alum, claret, anchovies, cloves, mace, pepper, salt, marjora...

Parboiled Coast of Mutton (neck and breast together) rolled around stuffing of breadcrumbs, lemon peel, pepper, salt, nutmeg, dried marjoram and basil, egg yolk...

Thin beef steaks, floured, fried and then stewed in water with walnut ketchup (Rundell 1807, Eaton 1822, White 1932)

Now usually thin steak fried, usually with onions, then water added and stewed to form a gravy (Francatelli 1852, etc.)

Grilled beefsteak topped with Stilton Cheese.

The meat, with fat and skin, from alongside a pig's spine, salted and part-dried, then slashed deeply and the cuts filled with a herb mixture - usually parsley,...

Lamb joint, typically boned leg or rolled loin, filled with breadcrumb and herb stuffing, roasted.

Pork chops, slit, and filled with rich breadcrumb stuffing. Baked in cider (J.Salmon)

Minced pork in almond milk with spices, thickened to a semi-solid with eggs and rice flour. Served with a wine-and-honey syrup (Austin 1440)

Original Receipt from 'The Cook's Oracle' by William Kitchiner (Kitchiner 1830)

The hard fat from the loins and kidneys of beef, sheep, etc., rendered and formed into blocks to be grated for use, or manufactured into tiny pellets.

A very dark cured bacon, using salt and dark sugars. The fat is distinctly brown, with a sweet taste.

Very dark sweet cured ham for cold eating. Pork legs soaked in salt and saltpetre brine, then pickled in a mixture of sugars with beer or cider for 3 or 4 weeks...

Lamb stew with lentils, beans, barley and vegetables such as potato, onion and carrot. (British Food Trust, etc.)

Vermicelli, paste laid over, then filling (pigeons in this example). Cooked and turned over so that the surface imitates a thatched roof.

Bacon fried with liver and chopped greens.

Round tenderloin fillets of beef fried in butter, served on a crouton, topped with a slice of foie gras, slices of black truffle, and a Madeira sauce.

Meatballs of minced pork, egg, honey, pepper and herbs (Liber Cure 1430)

Minced veal with whole oysters (Acton 1845)

Minced veal with ham, egg and herbs, moulded and baked.

Small pieces of venison in gravy, possibly with vegetables and other meats, in a pastry case. Although the term 'pasty' is used, the dish is now usually a dishe...

Thick steak, scored on each side, soaked in vinegar, sugar, seasoning and herbs. Dredged in flour and fried.

A complete trimmed side, virtually a whole half-pig, soaked in brine for 4 to 5 days, then dried for up to 14 days. Sometimes smoked. Said to have been develope...

Known by this name at least since advertisements of the mid 1700's (eg: Sussex Advertiser - Monday 26 July 1762, p4), York Ham is ham made in or near York or Yo...

A minced beef collop with minced onion, barley, nutmeg and herbs. Fried in dripping.