I’ve noticed that in the English language certain animals have specific names for their meat.
For example, meat from cattle is called ‘beef’, and meat from deer is called ‘venison’, and meat from sheep is called ‘mutton’, yet chicken meat is just called ‘chicken’, turkey meat is just called ‘turkey’, and goat meat is just called ‘goat’.
Why did we inherit special names for certain kinds of meat and no special names for other kinds of meat? Any ideas?
I suspect that it’s due to the socioeconomic situation in Norman Britain. The foods that the rich ate were called by French-derived names, but the animals that produced those foods were raised by the poor, and thus called by Anglo-Saxon-derived names. Meanwhile, foods which were accessible to the poor were called by their Anglo-Saxon-derived names both for their living form and for the foods they were turned into.
This goes back to the Normands who introduced French words for animals whilst the English speaking peasantry kept the old English names. Over the years these French words came to be the the name for the meat.
The farmers spoke Anglo-Saxon, the cooks spoke French.
1066*
Goat meat is sometimes called chevon (which like beef, mutton, and pork is derived from French). The reason chevon is not a common term is because goat meat isn’t all that popular in America. One group that does eat goat more often are Hispanic Americans. For that reason, you’ll sometimes see goat meat being sold as cabrito, which is Spanish. And sometimes you’ll see goat meat being called mutton, which is just ignorance of zoology and cuisine.
One unrelated note on meat terms. People marketing ostriches decided they needed a fancy term for the meat. But for some reason rather than using the French autruche they decided to go with the German strauss.
Thanks folks. Ignorance fought.
Just to add my $0.02 without actually providing an answer, I was in Italy and referred to a farm animal as “pollo”, which means “chicken.” Somebody laughed and said that’s only what they called it when it was on your plate. So Italian has a word for the meat though English doesn’t. And they generally refer to pork as “pig meat.” I don’t speak German but I remember “schweinfleisch” on a menu in an American restaurant serving German cuisine, which means “pig meat” IIRC.
See my staff report Why do we eat “beef” and “pork” rather than “cow” and “pig”?
As for chicken, although there is no distinct word for the meat, the English word poultry is derived from the Anglo-French puller; in modern French, poulet refers to both the animal and the meat.
As has been said, goat was not commonly used for meat in England at the time of the Norman Conquest. Turkey came to Europe from the Americas long afterward.
Interestingly, (to me) young animal meat often as its own terminology such as veal, lamb, suckling pig, etc.
In a weird preliminary to that situation, the same situation was alread present in France, with *boeuf *meaning the meat, and *vache *meaning the animal.
That’s not the name of the meat, it’s the name of the animal.
A young calf is a veal. The meat from a veal is veal meat.
An unweaned piglet is a suckling pig. The meat from a suckling pig is suckling pig meat.
And so on.
I’ve never heard the meat from a calf called anything but veal. Never “veal meet”.
Ditto for suckling pig.
And the OP missed pig/pork. Also an English/French couplet.
This is wrong. The primary meaning of “veal” is to refer to the meat of the animal. (Although the word can sometimes be used to refer to a calf raised for veal, this usage is comparatively rare.) I have never heard of veal referred to as “veal meat.”
[QUOTE=Blake]
An unweaned piglet is a suckling pig. The meat from a suckling pig is suckling pig meat.
And so on.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, the meat from a suckling pig is usually simply referred to as suckling pig. It would not be common to refer to it as suckling pig meat.
No, and you’ve never heard of chicken referred to as chicken meat either. Or tuna referred to as tuna meat. Or rabbit referred to as rabbit meat.
That is the whole point. In English we rarely add “meat” to the name of the animal we are eating. We assume that the listener knows that once we have named an animal.
The list that kayaker provided is simply a list of the animals that don’t have specific names for their meat, so we apply the standard English practice of referring to the meat by the same name as the animal. No different to rabbit or chicken or tuna.
They are definitely not examples of the meat of young animals being given their own name. They are simply examples the meat being given the same name as the animal.
Except veal isn’t veal meat; it’s calf meat. Nobody ever refers to a live calf as “veal” unless it’s intended to be eaten young, and often not even then. You do have a point with “lamb” and “suckling pig”, though, since the live animals are called that.
This is definitely not correct in the case of veal, as the Merriam-Webster definition clearly shows. The order of senses in Merriam-Webster is historical: the first known sense of a word is given first, and later senses follow. From this, it is evident that veal was first used to refer to the meat of a calf, and the sense of a calf raised for veal came later.
Veal is connected to the French veau, a calf, and it came into English at the same time as, and in the same way as beef, pork, venison and mutton; with the Normans and their fancy dining-room French. “Veal” in the sense of a calf does turn up in English, but not until a good deal later, and even then it’s rare and is only ever used to a calf that has been or is intended to be slaughtered for food.
(And “veal calf” is a variety of leather.)
From Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe:
Well, I’m hungry.