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This recipe calls for animal brains or related nervous-system tissue. Cattle brain and spinal tissue can transmit bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the cause of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, which is fatal and has no treatment.
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Entrées: Petites
Petits pains à la Ménagère are little moulds of minced beef served with brown sauce and mushrooms. The same preparation may be made into little rolls or cakes, wrapped in pork caul and fried, and served as Crépinettes, or dressed in little patties, as Petites bouchées, à la Ménagère.
Œufs à l'Ecossaise are hard-boiled eggs coated with minced meat or forcemeat, breadcrumbed and fried, and then cut in halves. If covered with crushed vermicelli instead of breadcrumbs, and served with a sharp sauce, they are called à la Garfield.
Curried beef is served as Kari de bœuf, or Bœuf à l'Indienne ; à l'Orient, it is garnished with olives and gherkins.
E Rissoles à l'Indienne are curried rissoles.
Rissoles à la Suisse are flat cakes of mince, served with gravy.
Boulettes à la Française are little balls of minced beef with breadcrumbs, etc., served with gravy and fried potatoes.
Chaudfroid à la Paysanne is a mould of aspic, decorated with vegetables, and filled with a purée of meat.
Moëlle de bœuf à la Orly. Beef marrow cut in long pieces, dipped in batter and fried; served with tomato sauce in a sauce-boat.
Quenelles à la moëlle are quenelles of beef marrow with breadcrumbs, eggs, etc.
Petites bombes à la moëlle are made of the same preparation, steamed in little bombe moulds.
Bouchées à la moëlle are small patties filled with marrow and a savoury sauce of cream, shallot, chives, etc.
Petites croustades à la moëlle are made of the same preparation put into little cases of fried bread, breadcrumbs strewed on the top, and browned.
Friantines de moëlle à la St. Marc are slices of marrow laid on slices of tomato, covered with forcemeat, and fried in batter.
Vol-au-vent d'amourettes à la crème is a vol-au-vent of beef tendons with Béchamel sauce and mushrooms.
A beef page, and half of it is marrow. The distinction a modern reader most needs is the one the French hides: moëlle is marrow out of the bone, amourettes is the spinal cord, and they are not the same material at all.
- Moëlle is bone marrowMoëlle de bœuf is the soft fat from inside a leg bone. Butchers sell marrow bones split lengthways, and a spoonful of the marrow enriches a sauce in a way butter cannot. That is what every moëlle dish on this page is doing.
- Amourettes are not marrowThe vol-au-vent d’amourettes is the single dish here made of nervous tissue. Amourettes means the spinal cord, lifted out of the chine. The affectionate name has nothing to do with the bone marrow in the entries just above it.
- A Scotch egg, served hotŒufs à l’Ecossaise is a hard-boiled egg in a coat of forcemeat, crumbed, fried, then cut in half and sauced. The modern picnic object is the same thing eaten cold and whole; here it is a hot made dish with a sharp sauce.
- Chaudfroid means set in jellyChaud-froid is a technique name: cooked hot, served cold under a sauce stiffened with gelatine. The entry here is a mould of aspic lined with cut vegetables and filled with a meat purée, and the decoration is the dish.
- Crushed vermicelli as a coatingÀ la Garfield coats the egg in crushed vermicelli instead of breadcrumbs. The trick is sound and costs nothing: dry pasta crushed fine fries into a spikier, longer-lasting crust than crumbs.
- Pork caul on a beef pageCrépinettes turn up here too, holding a beef mince together in pig’s caul. That is a butcher’s habit rather than a cook’s, and it tells you the two trades were working from the same carcass.
These are the economy dishes of a large kitchen — mince in little moulds, rissoles, flat cakes, balls, patties — and the French names are what make them presentable. The marrow is the part worth noticing. Beef marrow is a by-product: a household that roasted sirloins had leg and shin bones coming back from the butcher, and this page spends five consecutive entries finding dinner-table uses for what was inside them. Battered and fried with tomato sauce in a boat. Steamed in little bombe moulds. In patties with cream, shallot and chives. In bread cases browned on top. Laid on slices of tomato under forcemeat and fried. That is not nose-to-tail cooking as a position; it is what a cook did on a Tuesday when the bones arrived with the joint, and the inventiveness on display is the inventiveness of somebody who had no choice about the raw material.