Does Anybody Know Really Know How Beef Wellington Got Its Name?
Nowadays, a plate of beef Wellington — a tender cut of steak wrapped in minced mushrooms wrapped in pastry dough — is considered a classic British meal and one of Gordon Ramsay's iconic dishes. It's got a fancy reputation with a fancy name to match, and though it seems like the height of luxury today, it might be an older dish than you expected. But how did this meat pastry get its proper "Wellington" name?
The most popular theories about beef Wellington's origin involve Napoleon Bonaparte, at least tangentially. Its name is frequently attributed to a 19th-century English general named Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington. Beef Wellington may have been named as a celebration of Wellesley's military exploits, which included defeating Napoleon's army at the famous Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Waterloo signaled the end of Napoleon's conquests and earned Wellesley his duke title.
Another possibility is that the dish is taken from a similar French dish called "filet de boeuf en croûte," or beef fillet with crust, which may have been renamed in honor of Napoleon's defeat. As to why the dish was linked with Wellesley to begin with, historical accounts speculate it was because his chef happened to make lots of Wellingtons for him. Other accounts, like Britannica, say that Wellesley preferred food that was easy for troops to carry around while on the move and that one of his chefs may have tried wrapping steak in dry, flaky dough for this purpose.
The history of beef Wellington keeps getting weirder
It's important to note that there is no hard proof that beef Wellington is named for the Duke of Wellington. It is also entirely possible that the dish is named because the first versions of the pastry were shaped somewhat like a Wellington boot, a style of rubber rain boot that became popular during the 1800s. That said, Wellington boots are also named after the very same Duke of Wellington, who asked a shoemaker to modify a then-popular Hessian boot to suit his personal tastes, giving the shoe its name. In any case, we can pinpoint the famous historical figure after which beef Wellington was likely named, but how exactly the duke became the dish's namesake remains a mystery.
Oddly, the first recorded usage of the pastry's modern name was in a 1903 issue of the Los Angeles Times, which mentioned a "fillet of beef, a la Wellington," according to The Telegraph. The name gradually began appearing more often afterward, and during the 1960s, Julia Child featured beef Wellington recipes on both her television show and in her cookbooks, introducing the dish to a wider American audience. There have also been some variations on the classic: Child's version uses brioche instead of puff pastry dough, some recipes add prosciutto or ham, and some recipes call for filet mignon instead of tenderloin, but the basic steak wrapped in pastry is fairly consistent. No matter the version or origin story you pick, there's still one man to thank: The first Duke of Wellington!