From Ruth Lawrence on Facebook yesterday, a version of these meat-shoe photos, which had come to her on the net (the way things are customarily passed around, without sourcing):
(#1) The meat shoes
But since what #1 depicts is clearly the (most entertaining) referent of the POP (phrasal overlap portmanteau)
beef Wellington boots = beef Wellington (the food preparation) + Wellington boots (the footwear), referring to (simulacra of) Wellington boots fashioned from beef Wellington
I could quickly track them down to a source —
a posting on the Rate My Plate community site, “Homemade Beef Wellington Boot with Steamed Veg & Red Wine Gravy by Luke V” from 6/28/20 (four years ago, but for some reason it’s making the FB rounds now).
(The veg and gravy are in other photos. Members of the community did not take kindly to the veg.)
The contributing phrases. The phrases, and in fact the referents of these phrases, might not be especially familiar to all of my readers, so two lexical notes from Wikipedia:
— on beef Wellington:
Beef Wellington is a steak dish of English origin, made out of fillet steak coated with pâté (often pâté de foie gras) and duxelles, wrapped in puff pastry, then baked. Some recipes include wrapping the coated meat in prosciutto, or dry-cured ham to retain its moisture and prevent it from becoming soggy.
A whole tenderloin may be wrapped and baked, and then sliced for serving, or the tenderloin may be sliced into individual portions before wrapping and baking.
The result is a contrast in textures and tastes. The preparation, however, is tedious and tricky (not to mention expensive) — not worth the trouble, in my estimation.
On the other hand, if you have some fabulous beef to shape and encase in puff pastry, your way is open to indulge your fancies of creating simulacra of any manner of solid objects — like footwear (more on food simulacra below).
— on Wellington boots:
A Wellington boot, often shortened to welly, and also known as a gumboot, rubber boot, or rain boot, is a type of waterproof boot made of rubber.
Originally a type of leather boot adapted from Hessian boots, a style of military riding boot, Wellington boots were worn and popularised by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. They became a staple of practical foot wear for the British aristocracy and middle class in the early 19th century. The name was subsequently given to waterproof rubber boots and they are no longer associated with a particular class. They are now commonly used for a range of agricultural and outdoors pursuits.
… The terms Wellington boot and gumboot are most commonly used in British English
The 1st Duke of Wellington is the one who defeated Napoleon at Waterlooo and served twice as British prime minister. His connection to the footwear is clear, his connection to the beef in puff pastry much murkier.
Food simulacra. That is, food made to look like other stuff. Cookies, cakes, crackers (I just posted about Goldfish®), molded salads, and so on. And then there’s the Principle of Phallic Food (or PPF):
If it’s possible to create instances of some type or preparation of food so as to resemble a penis (or, even better, a penis plus testicles), someone has already done it.
Again and, ingenious food people rise to the challenge. Yes, sushi:
(#2) A sushi genital triad
And, more to our current point, beef Wellington:
(#3) A beef Wellington penis, bearing an emblem of itself
This from a Reddit poster (whose identifying information has become unavailable to me for some reason), who wrote:
spent the weekend on the Frio [AZ: the Frio River in the Texas Hill Country] with a buddy and they requested beef Wellington
Note: in order to view #3 on Reddit, I had to swear that I was at least 18 years old and then, separately, affirm that I wanted to see the restricted image. It was also labeled NSFW, but that strikes me as reasonable. The blanket restrictions on images of (often quite stylized) simulacra do not.