‘Shoe-Leather Reporting’: The Idea Of ‘Well-Done’ Meat And How It Has Changed

The 1964 edition of The Joy of Cooking described leg of lamb as being “well-done” at 160 to 165 degrees; the book’s 1997 edition describes the same meat at about 140 degrees as “medium.” By 1990, Craig Claiborne’s NY Times Cookbook didn’t even suggest well-done leg of lamb as an option. Susan Burton investigates how this change happened.