The Galantina and Chicken Relleno

I asked Rachel Laudan, a culinary historian presently living in Mexico, to enlighten me about the difference between chicken relleno and galantina. She tells me that rellenos are alive and well there, while she has not encountered galantinas, which she considers nineteenth-century cuisine. Filipinos, on the other hand, have sometimes used the terms interchangeably, assuming that the chicken relleno is a Filipino version of Spanish galantina using ground pork, canned sausages, sweet pickles, and a boiled egg to stuff the chicken. A Philippine archival recipe I encountered for galantina used canned “Oxford sausages” and “lengua de carnero” (referring either to its literal translation of sheep’s tongue or to a Spanish herb) to stuff the deboned chicken. The chicken was sewn up, wrapped in cheesecloth, and steamed until cooked. It was allowed to cool, then pressed to flatten it slightly before slicing and serving.