Collops

Collops are slices of meat. The derivation of the term is uncertain. It appears to be related to the Swedish word kalops, rather than to the French word escalope.^[1]

In Elizabethan times, "collops" came to refer specifically to slices of bacon. Shrove Monday, also known as Collop Monday, was traditionally the last day to cook and eat meat before Lent, when that was a period of fasting from meat. A traditional breakfast dish was collops of bacon topped with a fried egg.

Scotch Collops are a traditional Scottish dish. It can be created using either thin slices or minced meat of either beef, lamb or venison. This is combined with onion, salt, pepper, and suet, then stewed, baked or roasted with optional flavourings according to the meat used. It is traditionally served garnished with thin toast and mashed potato.

The methods used to create this dish in its various guises have direct parallels with the Middle Eastern treatment of meat in such dishes as koftas.

Other Uses

A collop is also used to name a measure of land sufficient to graze one cow.

Collop in Irish tradition is the amount of land deemed capable of producing enough to support one family or the number of cattle that the family could rear by pasture on it. It was the basis for the division of common land in the western parts of Ireland in the 18th and early 19th centuries. As in the Rundale system, the 'collop' was scattered over several different fields so that good and bad land was equally divided.^[2]

References

1. ^ "Collops" - The Oxford English Dictionary. 1933, Oxford University Press.
2. ^ A Dictionary of Irish History, D.J.Hickey & J.E.Doherty, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1980. Pp. page 82-83. ISBN 0-7171-1567-4

External links

• 18th century recipe for Veal collops
• Mrs. Beetons recipe for Collops
• Historic food website, recipe for Venison in Collops
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