bone marrow the soft, nutritious substance found in the internal cavities of animal bones, especially the shin bones of oxen and calves. The French term is moelle.
The spinal marrow of oxen and calves is sometimes known as ‘ox pith’. Pieces of it, or of the same thing from sheep, are commonly called amourettes in French. Since BSE, spinal marrow is not available in Britain.
Medieval and early modern European recipes make clear how generally marrow was valued on its own (a dish of marrow bones accompanied an array of thirteen other beef dishes laid out as the first course of a magnificent dinner in Barbados described by Richard Ligon in 1657), and as an enrichment to stews, ragouts, and, especially, tarts and pies both sweet and savoury, the most famous early modern English example being Tart de moy (so called after the French moelle). When marrow was served on its own, it was roasted and presented in its bone from which it would be removed with a special silver marrow scoop.
Dorothy Hartley (1954) provides charming drawings which show how marrow bones were baked in Georgian times, with a small paste crust sealing the cut end, and how they were boiled if the marrow was to be served on hot buttered toast. In the time of Queen Victoria, marrow was considered to be a man’s food and ‘unladylike’, although Queen Victoria herself apparently ate marrow toast for tea every day, ‘certainly not correct diet for her plump Majesty’.
Sheila Hutchins, writing in 1971, mentioned that baked marrow bones were ‘still served hot in a napkin at City dinners and a few old-fashioned public houses’ in London. More remarkably, she gave two recipes for marrow pudding, one of which was the family pudding of Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn. This was still, when Sheila Hutchins interviewed him, being ‘served regularly with hot jam sauce at his table and at that of the dowager Lady Watkin Williams-Wynn’ (at the age of 95). The preferred jam was raspberry. In the wider world, marrow is still an essential for beefsteaks à la bordelaise and a proper risotto alla milanese. Spinal cord is popular in Cantonese cookery, as is marrow soup in Korea. Various stews of veal or beef shin, such as osso buco in Italy and bulalo in the Philippines, are the more enjoyable for the marrow left in the bone. It has latterly been experiencing a revival in restaurant, if not domestic cookery (Bilson, 2004; Henderson, 1997).
© the Estate of Alan Davidson 1999, 2006, 2014 © in the Editor’s contribution to the second and third editions, Oxford University Press 2006, 2014.
