Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

bard a culinary operation described with his usual lucidity by Stobart (1980):

A bard was an armoured breastplate for a horse. In cooking, it is a breastplate of fat, salted fat or bacon, a thin slice of which is tied around meat or fowl to protect and moisten it during roasting. This is particularly necessary when the meat lacks its own fat; the bard also helps to keep rolled meat neatly in place.