On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 1:52 PM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

This is a very interesting comment.

For quite some time now, i've believed that {Ha'DIbaH baylaD} was the
perfect description of a steak, because of the way butchers in greece
make them. First, they take a piece of meat, then they slice with a
knife the flesh, using a cleaver at the end to cut the bone. So, all
this time I was thinking to myself "no problem if klingon doesn't have
a dedicated word for 'steak'; I'll use {Ha'DIbaH baylaD}, since steaks
are sliced from a bigger piece of meat".

But after reading your comment, I understood that saying {Ha'DIbaH
baylaD} would be more appropriate for deli meats. On the other hand,
using just {Ha'DIbaH} for "steak", would create another kind of
confusion..

In greece, we often roast an entire thigh of an animal, or an entire
leg, and using {Ha'DIbaH} on its own, brings to my mind more the image
of an entire leg/thigh, than the image of a steak.

So, in order to avoid this confusion, I think that in order to
describe "steak" in klingon, I'll just be writing *steak*, at least
until the month that has no saturday, when we'll receive a klingon
word for "steak".

Unless you're writing a cookbook or a lavish description of a banquet, it's probably rarely necessary to be extremely specific about the particular meat configuration. In the context of your example, the chef is putting fries next to the meat in question, so it's likely to be a piece of meat that's traditionally served with fries and that will fit onto a plate, which suggests a steak rather than a whole leg.

If you are writing a cookbook or a lavish description of a banquet, you still have some options before just using the Federation Standard word itself. To be more precise about various dishes, you could use {gham} "limb", {nev'ob} "thigh", {ghab} "chunk of the midsection of an animal", or {Hom Hutlhbogh ghab} "boneless chunk of the midsection of an animal". If it's necessary to specifically refer to a steak-shaped slab of meat, maybe something like {baylaD'a'} "big slice", {baylaD qargh} "thick slice", or {ngogh} "brick, lump, block" for a steak could work. Or perhaps {baylaD} works just fine for steak, and deli meats would be {baylaDHom}. I'm not a Klingon; perhaps the Klingon conception of a slice of meat is closer to a steak than to deli meat.