Tenderloin

Tenderloin is an expensive cut of beef or pork that is taken from along the middle of the back of a cow or pig. The tenderloin is very tender because that particular muscle is not used by the animal, so it never gets toughened up with use. Tenderloins don't have much fat in them, so they aren't as flavourful as many other cuts of meat, but they are perfect for quick cooking in dishes like satay.

Beef tenderloin is an elongated muscle, perhaps two or three pounds, which can be baked whole; in this form it's often called chateaubriand. Because it is mild in flavour, roast tenderloin is often coated with a tasty crust, perhaps made of coarsely ground peppercorns. Beef tenderloin can also be cut crosswise into filet mignon steaks or tournedos.

Tenderloin is also an area in New York City (later also San Francisco) known for vice and corruption. It was named after the choice cut of meat that the police could afford to buy from their immoral earnings from bribes.

Tenderloin is also a musical by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. It originally opened in 1960 to generally mixed reviews and ended up with 3 Tony Award nominations. The original cast recording debuted on the Billboard charts in January of 1961 and stayed there for 34 weeks, peaking at #15.

The basic story of Tenderloin is about the Reverend Dr. Brock, a minister who has a plan to close down a seedy area of New York City called the Tenderloin.

Tenderloin opened on October 17, 1960 at the 46th Street Theatre and ran for 216 Performances.

There has never been a major revival of Tenderloin, but the production was a part of the City Center Encores! series in 2000.

Tenderloin

Music by Jerry Bock
Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
Book by George Abbot and Jerome Weidman

Members of the original cast:
Eddie Phillips, Margery Gray, Ron Hussmann, Wynne Miller, Eileen Rodgers, Charles Aschmann, Lee Becker, Carvel Carter, Lanier Davis, Nancy Emes, Maurice Evans, Stokeley Gray, Irene Kane, Jack Leigh, Christine Norden and Jayne Turner

Musical Numbers
Overture
Bless This Land
Little Old New York
Dr. Brock
Artificial Flowers
What's In It For You?
Reform
Tommy, Tommy
The Picture of Happiness
Dear Friend(incidentally, this is a song title from another one of Bock and Harnick's musicals called She Loves Me
The Army of The Just
How The Money Changes Hands
Good Clean Fun
My Miss Mary
My Gentle Young Johnny
The Trial
Reform (Reprise)
Finale

Ten"der*loin` (?), n.

A strip of tender flesh on either side of the vertebral column under the short ribs, in the hind quarter of beef and pork. It consists of the psoas muscles.

 

© Webster 1913

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Ten"der*loin` (?), n.

1.

A strip of tender flesh on either side of the vertebral column under the short ribs, in beef or pork. It consists of the psoas muscles.

2.

In New York City, the region which is the center of the night life of fashionable amusement, including the majority of the theaters, etc., centering on Broadway. The term orig. designates the old twenty-ninth police precinct, in this region, which afforded the police great opportunities for profit through conniving at vice and lawbreaking, one captain being reported to have said on being transferred there that whereas he had been eating chuck steak he would now eat tenderlion. Hence, in some other cities, a district largely devoted to night amusement, or, sometimes, to vice.

 

© Webster 1913