Thread: Arise Sir Loin

THanks, Brad, and welcome to CLF!.

So says our resident expert on everything!

Originally Posted by brad74436

I knew my work as a rancher and high school French would come in handy. Sirloin is a cut of beef cut from the upper loin of a the cow/steer. It is from the french "surloyn," sur= sbove and loigne = loin

As reasonable as that may sound, the loin is the top of the back when a steer is standing on all four legs. The sirloin is the portion that connects the loin to the hind legs muscles. That would put them starting at the same elevation as the loin and extending in a downward direction. On the other hand when the beef is slaughtered and is hanging, it would be above the loin.
I guess it depends on when you look at it.

It would be more important to the cow how it was looking at it.

Hi If anybody is interested in this topic wikipedia has a list long of foods named after "famous" people. Here's a link

List of foods named after people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I finally had a chance to look of the origins of Sirloin, and I can now confirm that Brad is correct (as I suspected). According to snopes, the website that collects stories such as this and then investigates their veracity, sirloin was not usually spelled the way we do today until the 18th century. The most common spelling until then was "surloin". More info here:
snopes.com: Etymology of Sirloin

Lan Ahoy, I enjoyed reading the website you posted, but was disappointed that they didn't include Steak Diane (named for the Roman goddess of the hunt, in case you were also wondering). And Stephen, while both Peach Melba and Melba toast were named for Nellie Melba (this was a stage name, after her native Melbourne, Australia), the mentioned website shows that Melba toast was to an illness rather than a weight loss regimen. However, they don't name their source, so in my book, the jury is still out.