Learn English – Why is a very rare steak called ‘blue’
etymologymeaningword-usage
What's blue in the picture above?
Best Answer
It's called “blue” because it has a blueish color. Beef meat has a blueish (or purplish, depending on your color perception) color, changing to red with exposure to air as oxygenated myoglobin becomes the dominant factor in the color and to brown with heat. The initial “blue” isn't a very strong blue, it's more blue as in not the bright red that the meat becomes when it starts cooking. White meat has less myoglobin and more albumin.
Mere exposure to air without any heating is enough to oxygenate myoglobin well before the meat spoils, so “blue” isn't really applicable to a cut of meat by the time you buy it from a butcher's.
According to The Word Detective in all likelihood, the term did arise by analogy to the speed and force of a bolt of lightning, especially in “talk a blue streak,” meaning to speak rapidly and excitedly. The “blue” in “curse a blue streak” probably also invokes “blue” in the sense of “obscene.” So it it is not really insulting when you say that somebody talks a blue streak, it is just an informal way of saying that he/she talks very fast and endlessly and very often aimlessly.
To curse/swear a blue streak means to speak rapidly, too, but using swear/curse words. Cursing/swearing a blue streak is usually an outburst-- a retort or angry reaction, and short-lived. However, it can also mean using a lot of swear words repeatedly over a period of time: My teenager has been cursing a blue streak during the past month means that he/she has been using a lot of swear words, and often.
The ecclesiastical vernal (spring) equinox always falls on March 21st,
regardless of the position of the Sun. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday,
46 days before Easter, and must contain the Lenten Moon, considered to
be the last full Moon of winter. The first full Moon of spring is
called the Egg Moon (or Easter Moon, or Paschal Moon) and must fall
within the week before Easter.
At last we have the "Maine rule" for Blue Moons: Seasonal Moon names
are assigned near the spring equinox in accordance with the
ecclesiastical rules for determining the dates of Easter and Lent. The
beginnings of summer, fall, and winter are determined by the dynamical
mean Sun. When a season contains four full Moons, the third is called
a Blue Moon.
"Blue moon" appears to have been a colloquial expression long before
it developed its calendrical senses. According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, the first reference to a blue moon comes from a proverb
recorded in 1528:
If they say the moon is blue,
We must believe that it is true.
Saying the moon was blue was equivalent to saying the moon was made of
green (or cream) cheese; it indicated an obvious absurdity. In the
19th century, the phrase until a blue moon developed, meaning "never."
The phrase, once in a blue moon today has come to mean "every now and
then" or "rarely"—whether it gained that meaning through association
with the lunar event remains uncertain.
Neither source mentions possible atmospheric phenomena that can absorb red light and turn the moon blue.
Best Answer
It's called “blue” because it has a blueish color. Beef meat has a blueish (or purplish, depending on your color perception) color, changing to red with exposure to air as oxygenated myoglobin becomes the dominant factor in the color and to brown with heat. The initial “blue” isn't a very strong blue, it's more blue as in not the bright red that the meat becomes when it starts cooking. White meat has less myoglobin and more albumin.
Mere exposure to air without any heating is enough to oxygenate myoglobin well before the meat spoils, so “blue” isn't really applicable to a cut of meat by the time you buy it from a butcher's.