Name of meat cuts

In the last couple of days I’ve encountered a special challenge when reading (and writing) English as a non-native speaker. It’s related to food and more specifically the different meat cuts available. As I read about sous-vide cooking I often sit back and wonder what the cut is called in Norwegian. I’ve found a useful list at Doorway to Norway (quoted below), but my question to you is: Do you know about better or more extensive lists? Are there also differences between American and British English? And more generally: Is there any authoritative source for the translation of food related terms?

English = Norwegian
beef brisket = oksebryst
sirloin = mørbrad
bottom round = rundbiff
round steak = flatbiff
chuck = høyrygg
roast beef = roastbiff
club steak = entrecotí¨
tenderloin = indrefilet
T-bone = T-ben
boneless strip = ytrefilet
ground beef = kjøttdeig
short ribs = bibringe
flank steak = slagside
stew meat = bankekjøtt

There are a couple of false friends here. The Norwegian translation of “round steak” literarily means “flat steak”, whereas the Norwegian “Rundbiff” which litterarily mens round beef is equivalent to the English “bottom round”. Easy to get confused here…

6 Comments

  1. I know there are differences between French, British, and American butchery. There are cuts of meat that exist in some countries and not in others – as they break down the cows differently. (for example, some french steaks are cut perpendicular to american ones.)

    It also varies within the US. The french onglet is known as hangar steak in San Francisco and is available at any butcher there. When I tried finding it in Michigan, the butcher told me he’s been cutting meat for 15 years and had no idea what I was talking about.

    A while ago, I did do a little research on the web, and found this document:

    http://unece.org/trade/agr/meetings/ge.11/INF/2007_i01_e_Bovine.pdf

    which has a translation table between English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian (section 5.1). The document appears to be part of a UN process to standardize commerce.

    The Larousse Gastronomic has a charts of french, british, and american cuts (pages 96-98 – you might be able to see the pages on amazon if you search for “french cuts of beef” within the book).

    http://bovine.unl.edu/ – has some interactive charts of american cuts of meat.

    Let me know what else you find – good luck.

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