Similar dishes are familiar in cuisines of other countries including France, Italy, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.

The word "olives" in the name of the dish is a corruption of "aloes" or "allowes", from the Old French alou, meaning lark.

[1] It was held that the small stuffed beef (or veal) rolls resembled little birds, particularly those whose heads had been cut off in being prepared for the table.

In The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson observes that although the standard French term for similar beef rolls is paupiettes they have an alternative name – alouettes sans tête ("larks without heads").

Elizabeth Raffald in The Experienced English Housekeeper (1769) gives a recipe for the beef version, as in the 19th century does Mrs Beeton (1861).