Meaning:
A type of cuisine that combines both meat and seafood (especially lobster and
steak), or restaurants that serve such cuisine.
Often written "surf `n' turf". See also, beef and reef.
Background:
We know `surf and turf' as a type of fish + meat cuisine - if we know it at
all that is, the term is used mainly in the USA. Meals began to be offered
with that name from the 1960s onwards.
The USA is where the expression originated but it was on the beach rather
than in any restaurant - `surf `n turf' didn't begin as a reference to food.
As early as 1939 various products that might be used either on grass or at
the beach were referred to that way.
The earliest usage that I've found is in an advert for a bathing suit that
could also be used away from the beach - in The Philadelphia Enquirer, July
1939. Yours for just $2.95. Note that it was "Completely Air-Cooled". I'll
leave any alternative form of cooling to your imagination.
Various other `surf `n turf' products were also available in the 1940s and
50s - beach bags, sunbathing mats etc.
It was in the 1960s that the expression began to be used to describe food.
Obviously, surf refers to seafood and turf to animals fed on grass, as here
Obviously, surf refers to seafood and turf to animals fed on grass, as here
in an advert for a lobster and steak dish offered by Myhalyk's restaurant,
from a New York newspaper, January 1966:
Perhaps because of the incongruity of the ingredients, surf and turf has a
poor reputation amongst gourmets. As a dining experience, isn't what Basil
Faulty would have described as "the absolute apex". The item above was part
of a three-course meal, with drinks, which cost $3.95. Even in 1966 that
wasn't a great deal of money and many of the adverts for such food appear
to come from quite down-market food outlets.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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A certain beetle was fried and eaten as a delicacy in north-east China. Its
name, translated literally, was "land-sea-air." Judging from the low culinary
esteem of surf 'n turf, it'll take some time before that choice oriental dish
appears on the menu at any western food outlets.
