I was having lunch with friends last week in a fairly swanky gastropub, and the menu promised a ballontine of quail. The waiter told me that ballontine meant that the quail had been deboned, then stuffed.
It was quite nice to eat, but I have only just discovered what the menu intended to say, which is ballotine. I was put right by an amusing little book on French words in English with the not fantastically funny title of French Letters and the English Canon (Timewell Press, £9.99). It is by Mark Daniel.
Actually, Mr Daniel says that the correct spelling is ballottine. He has seen it on menus even as balantine. I can’t find the word in my Littré, though he has ballotin, from ballot, a bundle.
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