Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Collops are slices of meat. The term derives from the French escalope.
In Elizabethan times, "collops" came to refer specifically to slices of bacon. On Shrove Monday, also known as Collop Monday -- the last day to cook meat before Lent -- a traditional breakfast dish is 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 their cuisine, such as Kebabs and Koftas.
A Collop is also a measure of land sufficient to graze one cow.
Any small piece of meat, especially bacon. Survives in British dialect.
English word originally Scottish.
Swedish word is “kalops”.
Etymology varies between etymologists, though all agree on Old Germanic as the source (anyone who claims Fr “escalope” as the source forgets that that word is borrowed from Old Germanic via Norman French).
Wessén (Swedish) and Onions (English) agree on the origin as being Scandinavian (Old Norse) from “kol” coal(s) and “hoppa” hop, skip. “kolhoppa” being a dish of egg on a slice of meat grilled on hot coals, and presumably hopping about while grilling.
Skeat (English)goes for German “Klops”, a dish of stewed meat made tender by beating, ie “clopped” or “clapped”.
Larousse (French re “escalope”) plumps for old N-E Fr dialect “eschalop” rel. to “écale” (nut)shell (Sw. skal) maybe because of the appearance of the slice of meat round its seasoning??
If we discount the French as speculation, then it seems to me we need more material evidence of old-style food preparation to decide between Wessén and Skeat. The way Sw. kalops looks today, I’d go for Skeat, but Wessén and Onions have the more complex and dramatic suggestion, and it’s more fun imagining the Vikings cooking up ham and eggs round the campfire. With or without onions ;-)