Cutlets

Do people still eat cutlets? A cutlet is a thin slice of meat, often lamb which may be taken from the best neck end, or veal taken from the leg or rib of the beast, or sometimes pork, or even chicken or lobster; it can also be like a shaped patty of meat, coated in breadcrumbs and fried. The word doesn’t mean a little cut, but comes from Latin via French and originally meaning rib, costa, but whether a lobster has a rib, a lobster’s costa, I don’t know, but I guess it doesn’t. it might also be called a scallop or escallop, but it’s cutlets I’m thinking about today.

If I look in Eliza Acton’s index to her Modern Cookery, she has a whole list of recipes for cutlets:

• cutlets of calf’s head
• English chicken cutlets
• cutlets of fowls, partridges or pigeons
• lamb cutlets, in their own gravy, stewed
• lamb, or mutton, with Soubise sauce
• mutton, broiled
• cold mutton
• mutton, in their own gravy, stewed
• pork
• veal á la Francaise
• veal á l’Indienne, or Indian fashion
• veal á la mode de Londres, or London fashion
• veal plain
• of sweetbreads

Out of that long list there are only a few which would appeal to modern diners, mutton is virtually unobtainable, I don’t think anyone would contemplate a calf’s head, veal is expensive and even when humanely produced it’s not widely popular, and sweetbreads, although  absolutely delicious are hard to find in most butcher’s.

Even if anyone wanted to make a cutlet, I think they would be hard pressed to find a cutlet bat, so maybe a meat mallet or rolling-pin would have to do!