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When I eat chicken, I call it chicken. Chicken wing; chicken drumsticks etc.

When I eat lamb, I call it lamb. Lamb shank; lamb cutlets.

So why do I not eat pig or cow? I eat pork or beef. Is there a reason for that?

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[-] quindraco@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago
  • You generally never eat cow, because cows produce milk. When you eat beef, it is usually a steer.
  • Sometimes English uses culinary names - pork for pig, calamari for squid, etc. The explanation for each is likely to be distinct, but e.g. for pork, that's from Latin for pig (porcus) and for some arbitrary reason it stuck around. The answer is probably always going to be some variant on "it's arbitrary", though.
[-] iByteABit@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

calamari is just squid in Greek, maybe English people learned about cooking squid from Greece since there's so many of them and the word for it just stuck

[-] ME5SENGER_24@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Beef’s turn…

c. 1300, "an ox, bull, or cow," also the flesh of one when killed, used as food, from Old French buef "ox; beef; ox hide" (11c., Modern French boeuf), from Latin bovem (nominative bos, genitive bovis) "ox, cow," from PIE root *gwou- "ox, bull, cow." The original plural in the animal sense was beeves

[-] BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 2 points 1 year ago

Then you get oddities like ox used for the offcuts/ofal (tail, cheeks, tongue, heart)

[-] Case@unilem.org 5 points 1 year ago

Wait, I've heard of oxtail as a delicious southern dish, but never had the opportunity to try it.

Is it really just a generic cow tail?

English is stupid, and I say that as a native speaker.

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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
233 points (95.0% liked)

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