calf's-foot jelly

1 9.9

A jelly made from boiled calves' feet used in traditional dishes

noun
/kæfs fʊt ˈdʒɛli/

Archaic

: gelatina de pata de ternera

I made a delicious calf's-foot jelly for dinner.

Examples

Have you ever tried calf's-foot jelly?
My grandmother used to prepare calf's-foot jelly for special family occasions.
Some old recipes for calf's-foot jelly also include lemon peel and spices.
They served calf's-foot jelly as part of a traditional English supper.
My grandmother used to prepare calf's-foot jelly for special family occasions.
They served calf's-foot jelly as part of a traditional English supper.
Some old recipes for calf's-foot jelly also include lemon peel and spices.

Surface Forms

calf's-foot jelly singular

calf's-foot jellies plural

Morphology

calf's-foot + jelly

The phrase is compositional: 'calf's-foot' denotes the source ingredient (the foot of a young cow) and 'jelly' denotes a gelatin dish, so a learner who knows 'calf', 'foot' and 'jelly' can infer it is a jelly made from calves' feet. While the dish may be culturally specific or somewhat old-fashioned, the overall meaning is directly derivable from the constituent words.

Etymology

Calf's-foot jelly comes from old cooking. Cooks boiled the feet of young cows to get a natural gel and then cooled the liquid into a jelly, so the name, calf's-foot and jelly, literally describes the dish 'a savory jelly made from calves' feet'.