Do sheep get tougher as they get older? Is mutton used only in dog food, maybe, so there’s a stigma?
Mutton is an older sheep, the meat is tougher and often gamier. IIRC it is eaten quite a bit in Europe but not so much in the states. I think you can still get it, but it’s harder to find because there isn’t much of a market for it.
It really only lends itself to braising/stews, etc.
You obviously have never been to western Kentucky. There, mutton is the King of BBQ.
You can find mutton if you know where to look. Anyhow, Here’s a NYTimes article on mutton and why we don’t really eat it much here. (Registration required).
Relevant sentences for those who don’t want to register to view:
It’s also the meat of choice (and necessity) in west Africa.
Indian cooking uses mutton quite liberally.
If my dad and other men of his age with I talked are any indication, they had such bad experience with mutton in military mess halls that they forbade it ever being served in their homes. With nobody buying it, the stores stopped carrying it. Since the stores didn’t carry it, later generations didn’t grow up eating it and don’t request it.
I live in the middle east, you can get mutton really easily. Not so much pork…
You can get mutton at butcher shops in NYC. (We’re one of the few places that seems to still have real butchers, not supermarket butcher counters.)
It is certainly available on the Navajo reservation.
That smell never goes away. Worst smell in the world.
I’m 34 and live in the Boston area and originally from Louisiana. I don’t think I have had it or even seen it. If you told me I could have $1,000,000 if I could find some in the next 2 hours I doubt that I could do it because I have no idea where to look. I would like to try mutton at least once just because I am adventurous eater. Finding Rocky Mountain Oysters (testicles) is probably much easier in the U.S. It barely exists.
I would start in Middle Eastern or Arabic markets/butchers. Apparently, there’s a few Indian places that serve mutton curry in Boston, but it’s actually goat.
The only places that I’ve ever seen it were at Supermercados that service heavily hispanic populations. It did not look tasty in the package, so I wasn’t going to try it myself.
You can’t buy muttons because they get eaten when they’re lambs.
Here’s a page on mutton in the US:
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/366919
Note that most of it’s actually on Goat, which you can get several places. They only name one place in the US, in NYC.
You can also add the entire town of Owensboro, Kentucky, to that list.
Lots of lambs grow up for wool production, millions of sheep for millions of sweaters and millions of men’s suits. Now, farmers are efficient people, and they don’t just throw those sheep carcasses away when the sheep get old. If you want some good mutton recipes, go find your local sheep farmer.
You’ve seen “lamb & rice” dog foods, but I suspect the lamb is more mature, actually mutton. Dogs don’t care about gamy taste in meat; they probably prefer it.
If you were offered a wad of cash to go find some mutton, your supermarket butcher could get you some in a day or two. If you want it fresher than that, a sheep farmer will let you pick one out on the hoof. If he’s so equipped, he’ll butcher it while you wait.
What would he need beyond a knife and some baggies?
Campbell’s “Scotch Broth” soup contains bits of mutton. Not available in all grocery stores, in my experience.
Southside Market in Elgin, TX has wonderful barbecued mutton. I am pretty sure that it isn’t goat because around here it would probably be marketed as cabrito if it were. That is the only place I have ever seen sell mutton.
FWIW,
Rob