The Captain’s Log

Escalope and Scallop

Escalope

An escalope is a piece of boneless meat that has been thinned by pounding, rolling, or butterflying, coated with breadcrumbs or flour, and fried. Escalope is French. Schnitzel is equivalent German word.

Scallop

Scallop, the meat item, is an escalope. Scallop is an anglicized version of the French word. In English, scalloped and scallop describe food items that are sliced thin, such as scalloped potatoes and scallops of veal. Scalloped is also used to describe objects that resemble a mollusk’s shell. Scallop in the sense of the edible mollusk also derives from the French word. The French word is thought to derive from a Germanic source. Scallop appears to be related to the old Norse word skalpr, which means sheath, and the Middle Dutch word schelpe, which means shell. This suggests that escalopes were originally called escalopes because they had a coating.