Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. meat, esp. beef.

1579		S. Gosson An Apologie of the School of Abuse (1868) 64: They haue eaten bulbief.
1607		Rowlands Diogenes Lanthorne 8: How lookes yonder fellow? what’s the matter with him trow? has a eaten Bul-beefe? there’s a lofty slave indeede, hee’s in the altitudes.
1860		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 18 Aug. 8/3: That miserable, round-headed, bull beef selling Paddy.
1888		J. Ashton Modern Street Ballads 61: For soon he will his trial take, / And hard bull-beef be munching [F&H].

2. an arrogant, self-important person.

1624		Middleton Game at Chess IV iv: If Bishop Bull-beef be not snapped next bout As the game stands, I’ll never trust art more.
1785		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Lyric Odes’ Works (1794) I 90: Yet thou mayest bluster like bull-beef so big.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ A Dict. of the Turf, The Ring, The Chase, etc. 19: Bull-beef he is such who, puffed up by some office, or by riches, gets meaty about the eyes and overlooks old friends: usually adopted by Parish-clerks, Beadles, Public-house men, and fellows of low origin.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 121: As bluf [sic] as bull-beef.