Gristle is tough springy tissue found in meat. Chewy gristle, cut off the gristle, full of gristle.
It is cartilage and connective tissue, and it is what long slow cooking turns to gelatine — which is why a cheap cut is unpleasant fried and excellent braised. In a fast-cooked steak it stays and has to be cut away. Note that the word is Old English and its origin beyond that is obscure.
1noungristleTough springy tissue found in meat.
“He left the gristle on the side of his plate.”
gristle is a tissue.
Old English gristel means cartilage. Its origin beyond Germanic is obscure.
Proto-Germanic
*gredaną — to crunch
Proto-West Germanic
*gristl
Old English
gristel — gristle, cartilage
Middle English
gristel
English, today
gristle
Built from
From Middle English gristel, grystyl, from Old English gristel (“gristle, cartilage”), Proto-West Germanic gristl, of obscure origin; possibly from a pre-Germanic qfa-sub language. Seemingly equivalent to a diminutive of grist (“a grinding”), equivalent to modern English grist + le; possibly related to Proto-Germanic gredaną (“to crunch”). Cognate with Old Frisian gristel, gerstel (“gristle, cartilage”), Middle Low German gristel (“gristle”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire