Salisbury steak is named for Dr. James H. Salisbury, who prescribed what he referred to as “muscle pulp of beef” for Civil War soldiers suffering from so-called camp diarrhea. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Salisbury Steak”
One bit of Civil War trivia that I came across when I was writing a book about food names is Salisbury steak.
Do you know the origin of Salisbury steak?
No, I’m sure you can tell me though.
I’m going to tell you that originally Dr. James Henry Salisbury was trying to come up with a meat cure, as he called it, for intestinal disturbances that Civil War soldiers were having.
And he called it muscle pulp of beef because he thought that a lot of chewing and just focusing on eating meat and nothing else would cure what they called camp diarrhea.
So they would mince up the steak, and he tested it on Civil War soldiers.
I don’t think it worked very well, but the name stuck, Salisbury steak.
Yeah, when we had that in school, it always struck me that it was the leftovers, like the gristly trim and not the best cuts.
Right, with all that cross-hatching.
Yeah, exactly. It was hard to chew.
Yeah, I bet it didn’t go over well in the Civil War either.
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