#1068 Battle Loins

Yesterday I dove into the mystery of the “tuna loin” I had seen on a restaurant menu. I was confused. I thought loins had to do with the inner thighs and the area between them, and to my recollection fish possess neither of these, being totally devoid of the legs whose nexus creates the crotch.
Further study led me to the discovery that in butcher’s terms, the loin comes from the side and back between the ribs and the pelvis. The pelvis is the hip in cows. Fish must have a similar structure.
But here’s the thing. At first, I thought I had been wrong all these years. I had been going off that old phrase some famous general told his warriors in the Trojan War: “Gird your loins for battle!”
I thought he meant to secure their reproductive organs. Because I had also been exposed to another primitive garment in various historical depictions, namely, the loincloth.
As the loincloth never appeared to cover the side and back between the ribs and the pelvis, it didn’t occur to me that that’s where a loin was. I had been going along merrily for years, eating sirloin, sirloin tip, top loin, loin roasts and tenderloin, and assuming they all originated from the inner thighs of cows.
Since meat is essentially muscle, it made sense. And since thighs and legs on chickens are relatively tender, compared to the stringy back meat, it was a logical conclusion.
Who would have thought all those tender cuts actually came from the area on a cow that on humans we call the love handles.
But thank goodness I researched further. It turns out that loin has two meanings. On meat animals, it is the rib and pelvis deal. On humans, it is the area of the inner thighs and groin.
So I’m not a total idiot. And next time I hear the phrase “gird his loins for battle” I don’t have to reconstruct my mental image from a guy putting on the primitive equivalent of a jock strap to a guy putting on the equivalent of a Home Depot support belt.
Then again, where does the word girdle fit in...?
America, ya gotta love it.