Galantine

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For broader context, see charcuterie.

A galantine is a French dish of boned stuffed meat, most commonly poultry or fish, that is poached and served cold, coated with aspic. Galantines are often stuffed with forcemeat, and pressed into a cylindrical shape. Since deboning poultry is thought of as difficult and time-consuming, this is a rather elaborate dish, which is often lavishly decorated, hence its name, connoting a presentation at table that is galant, or urbane and sophisticated. In the later nineteenth century the technique was already attributed to the chef of the marquis de Brancas,^[1]

In the Middle Ages, the term galauntine, with the same connotations of gallantry, referred instead to any of several sauces made from powdered galangal root, usually made from brown bread or fish blood with powdered cinnamon and other ingredients, strained and seasoned with salt and pepper. The dish was boiled or simmered before or after straining, depending on the recipe. The sauce was primarily used with fish.^[2][3][4]

The extravangant hyperbole of declarations of courtly love were burlesqued by Geoffrey Chaucer:

Was nevere pik walwed in galauntine
As I in love am walwed and vwounde.^[5]

[edit] See also

• head cheese
• terrine
• turducken - usually a cold cut in which leg of poultry is stuffed with forced meat

[edit] References

• Peter Hertzmann on galantine