Eat My Globe

The Greatest of All Time:

The History of Lamb, Mutton and Goat Meat

Simon Majumdar (“SM”):

Hey, April.

April Simpson (“AS”):

Yeah, Simon.

SM:

What do you call a country that is led by sheep?

AS:

I don’t know, Simon. What do you call a country that’s led by sheep?

SM:

A dictator-SHEEP.

[Laughter]

AS:

Nooooo.

INTRO MUSIC

Hi everybody.

And, welcome to a brand-new episode of Eat My Globe, a podcast about things you didn’t know you didn’t know about food.

And on today’s very special episode we are going to be looking

[Sighs]

BAAAACK. . .

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

. . . to the history of lamb with a bit of, erm, goats thrown in. As you can hear, there will be some jokes. I can’t guarantee they’ll be funny but we’ll try our best.

Now, lamb, is known by the Latin name Ovis Aries. And goat is known by the Latin Capra hircus.

America’s Test Kitchen describes lamb flavor as “strong and distinctive” and “pastoral.” And, I’ve even heard some Americans describe the flavor as “gamy,” which America’s Test Kitchen explains is due to the “branched-chain fatty acids” found in lamb fat.

The Journal of Food Science of Animal Resources describes goat as, “goaty flavor,” which is a bit bad, but which they further describe as having a quote, “peculiar odor,” and also having

Quote

“savory, kokumi, umami, and meaty flavors that consumers find appealing.”

End quote.

Like lamb, goat’s flavor and smell come from branched-chain fatty acids. Don’t ask me to explain the science but from what I can gather, it’s a particular type of fat that originates in the animal’s stomach.

Lamb and goat are perhaps two of the oldest animals to have ever been domesticated by humans for consumption. Humans first domesticated sheep around 7,000 to 12,800 years ago. And goats shortly thereafter. Our early ancestors used sheep and goats for their fleeces of wool, their production of milk, and the meat they produced. And, they likely also used dung for fuel used for warmth and cooking, and for building shelter.

There are now over 200 breeds of sheep in the world. Some of these are grown to produce wool, and the rest are producing meat, milk and cheese. Some of those that produce wool would include the breeds, Rambouillet and Merino. While other breeds, such as Cheviot and Suffolk, produce more meats. Breeds like the East Friesian sheep produce over 1,000 pounds of milk annually. If you’ve enjoyed the delightful Spanish cheese called Manchego, the milk comes from the Manchega sheep breed. And if you like the beautifully pungent French cheese called Roquefort, the milk comes from the Lacaune sheep breed.

The use of “lamb” is taken from the German word “lambiz,” which when translated to English in the 8th century meant “a wee sheep,” apparently. And goats are known by their gender with male goats being known as “Billys” or “Bucks,” and female goats known by the terms “Nannys” or “Does.” Young goats are called “kids.” That’s not a joke. They’re really called that. Don’t you feel SHEEP-ish now. . .

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

. . . . if you thought I was joking. This is my wife, I'm just warning you, she's done all this.

[Laughter]

It is likely that our ancestors first domesticated sheep and goats in the area known as the Fertile Cresent – which is an area that includes parts of modern-day Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt.

The Fertile Crescent is known for being the home to one of the earliest civilizations developed by humans, which includes the ancient Mesopotamians,  where Mesopotamia in Greek means “between rivers” – in this case the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.

As I mentioned earlier, ancient peoples used sheep and goat for their meat and milk.

Indeed, some of the oldest recipes known to humans come from southeastern Mesopotamia – in what is now modern day southern Iraq – where the ancient Babylonians once lived. An aside, Mesopotamia was the region and Babylon was the city so while all Babylonians were Mesopotamians, not all Mesopotamians were Babylonians.

Anyway, back. . . BAAAACK to our famous. . . .

[Laughter]

No . . . baaaack, oh gosh, to our Babylonian lamb recipes.

A few of these ancient recipes, which date to around 1730 BCE,  include variations of lamb stew. And they are now kept at Yale University’s Babylonian Collection.

For example, a bunch of smart folks translated these ancient Babylonian recipes and determined that these recipes include a dish called, “me-e puhadi,” a lamb stew that the ancient Babylonians enjoyed with barley cakes. The translated text read as

Quote

“Stew of lamb. Meat is used. You prepare water. You add fat. You add fine-grained salt, dried barley cakes, onion, Persian shallot, and milk. [You crush] (and add) leek and garlic.”

End quote.

That sounds rather nice, actually.

Another type of ancient Babylonian lamb stew recipe was for a dish called, “tuh’u,” which apparently appeared similarly to modern day borscht because of the addition of beetroot and beer. That recipe, as translated, simply read,

Quote

“Tuh’u. Leg meat is used. You prepare water. You add fat. You sear. You fold in salt, beer, onion, arugula, cilantro, Persian shallot, cumin, and red beet, and [you crush] leek and garlic. You sprinkle coriander on top. [You add] kurrat and fresh cilantro.”

End quote.

Again, that sounds really good.

One thing I found interesting in going through these ancient recipes is that, while they used salt, they did not mention pepper. That’s because pepper did not make its way to Egypt from India, where it originated, until around 1570 BCE to 1069 BCE. Until around 3,000 BCE and salt was thought to have been discovered by Ancient Egyptians sometime after the Mesopotamian civilization had been and gone.

Anyway….

From Mesopotamia, lamb and goats began to spread their way outside the Fertile Cresent.

Sybil and I recently visited “the ‘stans” of Central Asia – which included Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan – and we saw that lamb was still the number one protein eaten in most of these countries.

In our visit to Greece, we also saw a similar affinity to lamb meat.

In ancient Rome, you can see that lamb and goat are two of the favorite meats used in “De Re Coquinaria,” the famous book from the time attributed to a writer named “Apicius.” We have now learned there were three different people involved in the times in the Roman period named Apicius and the potential writer was the middle Apicius, who lived in the 1st century CE. You can check out that story on our Eat My Globe episode on the history of cookbooks.

Here is one of the recipes in “De Re Coquinaria” using either goat or sheep.

Quote

“HÆDUM SIVE AGNUM ASSUM

“Broiled Kid or Lamb Steak

“Kid after being cooked in broth and oil is sliced and marinated with crushed pepper, laser, broth and a little oil. It is then grilled on the broiler and served with gravy. Sprinkle with pepper and serve up.”

End quote.

Notice, we then seen pepper.

I don’t know about. . . oh, this is my wife . . . EWE

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

but that sounds delicious. See what I did there? Ugh.

In addition to using the meat of the sheep and goat, ancient Greeks and Romans also used goat and sheep milk to make cheeses. It is likely that in Homer’s epic poem, “The Odyssey,” which was written around 725 to 675 BCE and which was about King Odysseus’ 10-year travel home after the Trojan War, he wrote about them eating cheese made from sheep’s milk. And in the 2nd century BCE, ancient Greeks and Romans gave temple offerings to their goddesses of a cake unfortunately named, “placenta,” which was made with goat’s cheese, honey and semolina pastry. I bet the placenta cake was the G.O.A.T. or the Greatest Of All Time. See what she did there?

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

Well, we will see as well that in some nations began to use baby lambs or goats as a sacrifice to their gods. Or in the case of Israel, God.

You may have heard the story of Passover. In Egypt where the Jewish people were sent to exile in 1250 BCE, they pleaded with the Pharaoh for their freedom, who refused to give it to them. So, God directed them to sacrifice a young lamb, of one year of age, and then to put its blood on their door. Inside their homes, they ate the roasted flesh of the lamb while the “angel of death” began to “pass over” the houses marked with blood. For those doors not marked with lamb’s blood, the angel of death took the lives of the first born who lived there. This convinced the Pharaoh to let the people leave. From then, ancient Israelites used goats and sheep as sacrifice for holidays like Passover and other days. This practice ended about the year 70.

For Christians, Christ became known as the “Lamb of God.” According to the Gospel of St. John, Pontius Pilate sentenced Jesus to death on the day and time that the Jewish people were preparing to sacrifice lambs. So, describing Jesus as “Lamb of God” meant to show that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb because he stood in place of sinners and, in effect, took away the sins of the people.  

Let me take a quick detour, if you will, and share a story that you can use to bore people with at dinner parties. So, the word, “scapegoat,” which refers to someone who should take the blame, was invented in 1530 by a Protestant biblical scholar named William Tyndale and is based on the animal sacrifice of goats. While translating the Bible, Tyndale read that the ancient Hebrews used to sacrifice two goats – one for God and one for Azazel, who was either a demon or a location where the goat would be sacrificed. The goat for Azazel was supposed to carry the sins of the people, so the goat was literally taking the blame or sins for the people. However, Tyndale mistranslated the meaning of Azazel and thought that it meant the goat that goes free instead of the fact that it meant the name of the demon or the place where the goat gets sacrificed. When he translated Azazel to English, he called it “escape goat,” which was then shortened to “scapegoat.” So, there you have it. Scapegoat was based on an actual sacrificial goat that was supposed to have taken on the sins of people.

Anyway. Moving on.

Neolithic people first brought sheep to Europe from the Near East. The argument is that sheep could not have been originally domesticated in Europe because Europe’s geography was too forested for the sheep to have room to wander. But after the Neolithic people brought sheep to Europe, they later crossed the English channel with sheep in tow.

In Britain, sheep appeared around the time of the Neolithic and Bronze Age period, around 3,000 BCE, with leather, sheepskin and even parchment beginning to be seen in archeological discoveries.

However, it is only during the Roman period of British Conquest that we see more archaeological evidence of sheep products beginning to be found due to the sheep wool that the Romans produced.

Wool making carried on in Britain and wool became one of Britain’s greatest exports by the Middle Ages. By that time,

Quote

“half the wealth of England rides on the back of a sheep.”

End quote.

And, as we see in the Saxon period of England, some names of villages took their names from their relationship with sheep like

Quote

“Shepley, Shepton Mallet, Shipley and Skipton.”

End quote.

Now, by the time of the Middle Ages, Britain had been captured by the Normans. This is due to a very famous date in England – the Battle of Hastings, which happened on the 14th of October 1066. Harold, the King, had been killed by the Norman conquerors and William the Conqueror replaced him. The Normans – or Norse men – were the descendants of Vikings, who moved to France, and then became the rulers of northern France. The Normans spoke French. At the time, the English spoke the Old English language also known as the Anglo-Saxon language.

What does this have to do with lamb, I hear you ask. Well, pay attention because this is another story you can bore people with at dinner parties.

When the French speaking Normans conquered England, the feudal aristocracy in England, who, as aristocrats, were already versed in the language of their conqueror, took to speaking French. The French speaking feudal aristocrats in England called sheep “mutton” or mutton. On the other hand, the  Anglo-Saxons, who worked the lands and were not the aristocrats, called sheep, “sheep.” So, when the aristocratic bosses or landlords called for “mutton” or “mouton” as food, they became used to referring to the flesh of the sheep as “mutton.” And because the aristocrats did not grow the animal, the workers never heard the word “mutton” being used to refer to the animal itself. So, it became the norm that “sheep” referred to the animal, and “mutton” or “mouton” referred to food. The same would be true of some other animals – like “Cow” and “Beef” or “Boeuf” in French; and “Pig” and “Pork” Or “Porc” with a “c” in French.”

Isn’t that fascinating?

Now, this may or may not be apocryphal. But it does introduce us to the British use of the words, “Lamb,” “Hogget” and “Mutton,” which are used to describe the various ages of the meat. Hogget may not be a familiar term to some of our listeners, particularly in the U.S. So, why don’t we look at how they’re cooked and used.

Neil Rankin, author of the book, “Low and Slow: How to Cook Meat,” describes lamb as under a year old, hogget between a year and 18 months, and mutton as over 2 years old. He goes on to say

Quote

“The younger lamb will have more delicate flavour and be tender, whilst the older mutton will be the toughest but with the biggest flavour, given proper feeding and living conditions.”

End quote.

What this means in real terms is that “lamb” is softer and more succulent. It is fantastic in, for example, the Milk Fed Lamb dish from Spain, oh, known as “Cordero Lechal” where it is put into an oven and cooked over a high heat until the skin is crisp, and the flesh is beautiful and tender. It is a specialty of Castille y Leon. I’ve been there and it is amazing.

“Hogget” comes as a slightly firmer texture. If I’m buying “hogget,” I would look to get the lamb belly – oh, oh, oh – which can be roasted with the ribs. Or I would get a shoulder joint of “hogget,” which would be roasted slowly with the bone in to give a deep flavor.

And “Mutton” is not something that I get too often here in Los Angeles, but I love it when I do. I would look to get shanks of “mutton” and cook them on a very low heat along with a rich gravy, and lots of vegetables in the sauce. It is something I would love on a winter’s night. To be honest, any other night as well.

Now, I may take a moment now to think about cooking these splendid dishes. Let me just take a moment. Okay.

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

I love Kleftiko, a slow cooked roast lamb dish that I encountered on my travels in Greece and Cyprus. Traditionally, it was cooked in an underground pit so it did not provide any evidence of it being cooked. Apparently, during the Ottoman Empire, a group of rebels called the “Klephts” fought back against the Ottomans by stealing their property, including sheep. To avoid detection when they cooked, they hid their cooking by slow roasting the sheep in the ground. Klephts meant “to steal” in Greek, and so their dish became known as Kleftiko. Incidentally, I’m told, that the origin of the word Kleptomaniac, which meant someone should steal, is also based on the Klephts. Interesting.

Another dish I enjoy is Arrosticini, which is an Italian skewer dish cooked by shepherds in the areas around Abruzzo. Traditionally, it uses lamb or castrated sheep.

While Sybil and I were in Central Asia, we encountered a dish called Kuurdak, which was a stewed dish using mutton cooked with potatoes. My new friends at Rubai Restaurant in the capital of Kazakhstan, who I met through my pal, Mark Dacascos, says that this dish is typically served for guests as a sign of hospitality. Typically, they tell me, the dish is made using freshly slaughtered sheep. I have to say that it was delicious, and Sybil and I felt honored by our new friends’ hospitality.

And one of my favorite lamb dishes of all, which is a Croation dish called Ispod Peke, which I’ve been told by locals means cooked under an iron bell. This is a dish using veal or lamb or just lamb that is cooked as the name suggests “under an iron bell” which is then put into the fire pit with potatoes, etc. If you come with me to Croatia, this is the dish I will always take people to eat. It’s very simple, but so fantastic.

It is worth noting that in certain regions – for example, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Caribbean, and other places – they might call goat meat “Mutton.” I have not found a credible source that explains why goat is called mutton but the great cookbook author, Madhur Jaffrey, theorizes that it was because when the British went to India, they called goat meat mutton because, well, they did not know what else to call it, and the name stuck.

And I love those goat mutton dishes too. Whether it is the stunning “mutton biryani” of India, which is a rice dish with goat meat; to the rather challenging, but delicious “Manish Wata” of Jamaica, which is a goat’s head soup; to the “Cabrito al Pastor” in Mexico, which is a delicious spit roasted goat over charcoal; to the stunning “Asun” of Nigeria, which is a spicy goat dish. Oh, oh, oh.

[Inhales.]

I love eating all these dishes. And particularly, while reading historical books on the Old West about BILLY the KID…..

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

. . . who would not have, who would not have been an outlaw if he only had a good NANNY growing up.

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

I’m sorry this is my wife.

[Laughter]

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

God.

SV:

[Laughter]

SM:

Oh, ok. See how I took you back full circle to goat names? Or did you already forGOAT about . . .

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

Look... This is it!

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

No! No more! No more!

AS:

Forgoat about it?

[Laughter]

SM:

Oh, oh. Okay, let’s carry on.

Now that we have done that, I wanted to talk about how lamb became so associated with Australia and New Zealand. Well, at least from the perspective of those of us here in the United States and places like the U.K.

In 1688, the first Englishman landed in Australia. By 1788, the British began to colonize the area and sent convicts there to work the land. This was after the British colonies in what would become the United States of America had gained independence. Previously, Britain sent its convicts to its American colonies. And so, the British had to look for other places to place their convicts. Eleven ships, commanded by Captain Philip Arthur, first landed in 1788 in New South Wales in Australia. These ships included the first sheep to arrive in Australia. Apparently, the sheep were meant for food and not for their wool. But, after the arrival of the merino breed of sheep in Australia in 1797, they soon began making wool.

While wool became very profitable, by the late 1800s, there was too much sheep meat in the country. So, the people started exporting frozen meat. And soon enough, exporting mutton became very profitable. Around that time, Australia exported 95% of its sheep meat to England. 

As of 2021, Australia was the leading exporter of sheep meat in the world. And according to the 2024 to 2033 Agricultural Outlook of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Australia will continue to be a top exporter of sheep meat. Indeed, in 2023, Australia produced 540,000 tonnes of lamb with 75,000 tonnes of it going to the United States.

[Sighs]

I guess Australia just had the CHOPS to be the top lamb exporter.

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

See what my wife did there? Oh dear, I don't see this until she's been through it once and she always adds these jokes. So there. Anyway.

Right now, New Zealand, which, as of 2021, was the second largest exporter of sheep meat and will continue to be one of the top exporters of sheep meat in 2024 to 2033, it sends about 21.3 million heads of lamb to other countries in the world. This is, to put it in perspective, around four times the population of New Zealand, which is about 5.3 million as of June 2024. That’s not bad for a country that only began exporting lamb in 1882, when the notion of freezing things like meat became viable.

In 1882, Willam Soltau Davidson, a British gentleman who looked after “The New Zealand and Australian Land Company,” put together a plan to ship frozen sheep meat from New Zealand to the motherland. He installed a freezing plant in a ship called the Dunedin. His ship carried 5,000 carcasses of which only one did not survive the sailing. By the end of 1890, when the Dunedin was lost to the seas, it had sailed nine journeys to Great Britain.

Although the United States of America is growing in its love for sheep meat, it’s still behind other meats in consumption. On average, the people in the US tend to eat about 1.1 pounds of sheep meat per year. In contrast, they eat about 60 pounds of beef, 50 pounds of pork, and 100 pounds of chicken. Those numbers tell me that it will be a struggle to even gain some traction over these other meats.

But how did sheep arrive in the Americas?

So, as I have previously discussed in episodes past, sheep arrived in the Americas through a process known as The Columbian Exchange. Just to explain this, this is a process described by Professor Alfred W. Crosby in his 1972 book of the same name. He describes the flow to and from the New World colonies of animals, plants and often, diseases. For purposes of food history, Spanish Conquistadors brought not only New World ingredients back to the Old World, but also imported animals and crops from their homeland to their new colonies as a way to feed the Spaniards who now lived there, and to raise animals and grow crops for potential profit. This flow is responsible for how so many ingredients that were not indigenous in most places now appear regularly on menus around the world, such as chocolate, sugar, tomatoes, chilis, corn, potatoes, etcetera, etcetera. We discussed this process in depth with renowned UCLA History Professor, Dr. Carla Pestana. So make sure to check out that episode.

In 1493, during the second voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, he first introduced sheep and goats to the island of Hispaniola, which is modern day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In 1519, the Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés – whose full name is, and I just want to share this. . . Don Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca – phew! Well, he brought sheep to modern day Mexico. In 1540, another Spanish conquistador, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, first brought sheep to what is now the United States of America but it’s thought that those sheep died off. In 1598, Spanish conquistador, Juan de Oñate, who, interestingly enough, married the granddaughter of Hernán Cortés, the other sheep importer, brought sheep to the Upper Rio Grande Valley of what is now New Mexico. Oñate’s sheep are thought to have survived and became the ancestors of sheep bred by the Navajo Nation.

Since sheep arrived in the United States, according to a US Department of Agriculture report,

Quote

“Historically, the lamb meat industry was developed as a byproduct of the wool industry.”

End quote.

This correlation means that wool became a valuable item and because of this, lamb and mutton became popular too. Conversely, wool’s decline in popularity also means the decline in lamb and mutton consumption.

Lamb and mutton were popular during the 1800s in the United States. Lamb and mutton were found on menus throughout New York. For example, New York’s Astor House had a saddle of mutton in a currant jelly sauce on their 1854 menu, and offered mutton soup, roast leg of mutton, cold roast of mutton, and various preparations of mutton chops on their 1892 menu. In 1892, the Ladies’ Restaurant in New York served mutton chops, lamb chops and lamb stew. And, New York’s Plaza hotel offered lamb in a mint sauce in 1899.

Keens, a famous New York steakhouse from 1885 and is still around today, although through some closures and ownership changes during the years, still serves their famous “Mutton Chop” as one of its main courses. By 1935, Keens claims to have served one million mutton chops. I have to say though that when I tried it some years ago, it lacked the real robust flavor of mutton in England. So, by my own reckoning, and I could be wrong, it was probably more like a delicious hogget. Interestingly, a 2006 article from The New York Times described it as

Quote

“an outsize (if invariably delicious) hunk of lamb. Not mutton dressed up as lamb this time, but lamb dressed up as mutton.”

End quote.

[Laughter]

As an old friend of mine and guest of Eat My Globe, Ken Albala, puts it in an article from NPR,

Quote

“It is close to impossible to even find mutton in the U.S. . . . It costs more to raise sheep for longer periods of time, and the decline in wool production in the U.S. is directly related to the decline of mutton as a culinary delicacy.”

End quote.

It appears that lamb and mutton became less popular in the United States due to four main reasons.

The first is the occurrence of the “Sheep Wars.” This is based on armed skirmishes between shepherds and cattle ranchers that occurred in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and other states from the 1870s to the early 1900s. During that time, sheep herders and cattle ranchers competed for grazing areas for their animals. In Texas, for example, the cattle ranchers were

Quote

“the more aggressive of the antagonists. [Their] methods of attempting to drive out [their] rival ranged from intimidation to violence, directed at both the sheepman and his flock.”

End quote.

Historian Ted Morgan says that the cattle ranchers disliked shepherds due to

Quote

“sound economic reasons.”

End quote.

He explains that

Quote

“Sheep required much less of an investment than cattle. One sheepman and two collies could handle 3,000 sheep [and] they cropped the short grass left by cattle and weeds that cattle wouldn't touch.”

End quote.

The “sheep wars” resulted in the death of men and thousands of sheep.

In 1934, the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act determined how lands could be used for grazing. While this law allowed for shepherds and cattle ranchers to come to a truce, by then it was too late for the men and the sheep who perished.

The second reason for the decrease in popularity of lamb and mutton in the US is due to American GI’s being served canned mutton during World War II. Lisa Fogarty quotes the author Bob Kennard in her NPR article as saying

Quote

“U.S. GI's were fed canned Australian mutton, which by all accounts was just awful.” 

End quote.

The taste of canned mutton apparently completely turned them off sheep meat after the war. Maybe when they saw the cans, they were expecting great flavors and instead, got a taste they did not like – kind of pulling. . .

[Sighs]

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

I’m so sorry. Kind of pulling a WOOL over their eyes.

AS:

[Laughter]

That’s a good one.

SM:

Okay, stop it now.

A third reason for the decline in popularity of lamb and mutton in the US is that just after World War II, wool was becoming a less popular material for clothes with synthetic fibers and other materials becoming more popular. And, as I mentioned. . . and as I mentioned earlier, there is a correlation between wool production, and lamb and mutton consumption.

Finally, the fourth reason for the decline in popularity of lamb and mutton in the US is the lack of catchy advertising unlike those for other meats like pork, beef and chicken. Jennifer Howze of the Huffington Post UK argues that the proponents of lamb and mutton just did not advertise as well as the proponents of pork and beef. For example, pork was advertised as quote, “the other white meat,” end quote, and beef was advertised as, quote, “beef, it’s what’s for dinner,” end quote. And, to be honest, I can’t think of a similarly catchy slogan for lamb or mutton from the sheep industry. May I suggest “lamb, when to. . .” Ugh – “lamb, when you want to show off your CHOPS at dinner.”

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

Or perhaps, “mutton, it’s the GREATEST OF ALL TIME.” Good slogans? Maybe not.

Whatever the reason for the declining popularity of lamb and mutton, the response I usually get from Americans is “it’s too gamy,” which I mentioned at the beginning of the episode.

But the silver lining is lamb and mutton consumption is continuing to move upwards, if only by a small amount.

The optimism may be due to immigration to the United States. Many immigrants from places like China, Armenia, Central Asia, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, et cetera, et cetera for whom sheep meat is a popular meat may seek out lamb and mutton. In addition, immigrants from places like India, Pakistan and other places in South Asia may also eat goat or lamb.

And secondly, we’re beginning to get a rise in sheep farming throughout the United States with just over 5 million sheep being kept. Goat farming is also increasing with 2.6 million goats. Now, again, these numbers are paltry against beef cattle at 28.2 million. This number does not include heifers, steers and calves, which, if you count those, takes this number up to 87 million. Hogs and pigs are at 75 million, and chicken are at 522 million. But it is a rise.

Ninety percent of goats in the US are kept for meat, which is a rise in their numbers. Whereas sheep in the United States is raised for both meat and wool. Lamb chops – mutton is scarcely found – being the most sought after in the United States. These are terrific and will often be found in the supermarket.

But, I would ask you to see if there are butchers still around. Or, if you have any stores around your neighborhood that focuses on immigrant communities that eat lamb, mutton or goat, I recommend that you go in and have a look at their selection and give it a try.

You can have lamb shoulder, which is fantastic for roasting. Lamb breast, which can be rolled around a stuffing mixture, secured with string, and then braised or roasted. Oh. Make a lamb curry out of the neck of lamb and goat. Braised lamb shanks which you can put on to cook with vegetables, slowly in the morning and come back in the evening. You can try plov – a dish we tried recently – a rice dish from Central Asia that’s topped with lamb. Birria, which is traditionally made with goat in Jalisco, Mexico. Kaldereta, a goat stew from the Philippines. Even the most beautifully simple roast leg of lamb that some say is Australia’s national dish.

As you can tell from my waxing lyrical about it, lamb, mutton and goat mutton are some of my favorite things to eat wherever I go.

So next time I travel, you probably know what I’m going to be eating.

See you next week.

OUTRO MUSIC

SM:

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Thank you and goodbye from me, Simon Majumdar, we’ll speak to you soon on the next episode of EAT MY GLOBE: Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know About Food.

CREDITS

The EAT MY GLOBE Podcast is a production of “It’s Not Much But It’s Ours” and “Producer Girl Productions.”

[Ring sound]

We would also like to thank Sybil Villanueva for all of her help both with the editing of the transcripts and essential help with the research.