white meat meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

white meat

noun

Etymology From Middle English whyte mete, wyttemet, equivalent to white + meat.

The breast portion of poultry.

Meats whose color, either before or after cooking, is considered white as opposed to red, including poultry, seafood, and pork in some uses.

Historical Dairy produce (occasionally including eggs).

[W]hite meates, as milk, butter ⁊ chéeſe, which were woont to be accoũted of as one of the chiefe ſtayes thorowout the Iſland, are now reputed as foode appertinent only to the inferiour ſoꝛt, […]1577, William Harrison, “[An Historicall Description of the Islande of Britayne, […].] Of the Foode and Diet of the Englishe.”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, →OCLC, folio 94, verso, column 1:
[I]n the very houſe or grange that I was borne in, my Mother and her maides made all the Whitmeate of ſeuenſcore kine and odde.1588, Bartholomew Dowe, “A Dialogue betweene a South-hamshyre Woman and a Suffolke Man concerning Making of Whitmeate”, in A Dairie Booke for Good Huswiues. […], London: […] J[ohn] C[harlewood] for Thomas Hacket, […], →OCLC, signature A3, recto:

3 more examples

For the southern labourer the traditional ‘white meats’ were now dearer and scarcer, and although the total number of cows increased in the seventeenth century more were now kept on large farms, where the milk was turned into butter and cheese for sale in the markets.1999, John Burnett, “Milk: ‘No finer investment’?”, in Liquid Pleasures: A Social History of Drinks in Modern Britain, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 30:
The white meats—milk, curds, cheese, butter, whey, and buttermilk, from either sheep or cows, were important in their diet.2004, Laura Mason, “Historical Overview”, in Food Culture in Great Britain (Food Culture around the World), Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, →ISBN, page 20:
Together with their dependence on brown bread and ‘white meats’, it was their consumption of roots and leaves that distinguished the diet of the lower orders in the countryside and helped in some way to define their inferiority.2013, Adam Fox, “Food, Drink and Social Distinction in Early Modern England”, in Steve Hindle, Alexandra Shepard, John Walter, editors, Remaking English Society: Social Relations and Social Change in Early Modern England, Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, published 2015, →ISBN, page 177: