How come you can buy lamb, but not mutton?

Depends on your definition of “butcher”.
I can slaughter and butcher anything sheep-sized or smaller with just a knife and a whole lot of butcher paper and tape. Many people prefer not to use a knife for the slaughtering, so YMMV on tools there. I need a rope and secure something from which to hang the carcass for bleeding and skinning. I mostly just butcher into large manageable pieces, though. If I wanted to do a lot of fancy cutting I’d need a setup a little less rough.

I wouldn’t tackle pork or beef, though–leave those tasks to guys with block and tackle and chain hoist on refrigerated trucks. :wink:
…on preview, I really hope that wasn’t a woosh. :wink:
Mmm… mutton.

“What’cha eating?”
“Mutton, honey.”

I grew up on sheepy meat. But that’s New Zealand for ya.

You could just drive to the nearest sheep farm and buy a sheep, and then slaughter it quickly. Bam, one million dollars.

Yep, same here. Always had the meat from a sheep in the freezer growing up. Occasionally, we knew the sheeps name. We didn’t tell my stepson when half his mates pet lamb ended up supplying roasts and chops one year. Half a hogget was a regular buy as a student (smaller freezer).

Here in the UK, we still generally buy NZ lamb. It’s cheaper, for one, but I actually find welsh lamb insipid and a bit tasteless.
Must be the way the welsh treat their sheep :wink:

Si

My Dad still speaks fondly of Godfrey’s Round Mutton Pies, which are apparently a delicacy from Dunedin (where he grew up).

You know that episode of The Simpsons where Homer tries to gain weight so he can qualify as “disabled” and work from home? There’s a sequence where Dr. Nick Riviera declares that if Homer wants to gain weight, he should rub his food on tissue paper. “If it goes see-through, it’s your window to weight gain!”

The brown paper bags that Godfrey’s Round Mutton Pies came in was completely see through. :eek:

Ironically, even though I’m originally from NZ, I can’t stand Lamb or Mutton, either. :slight_smile:

…and darn tasty a lot of it is, too. That was my introduction to it. When trying to buy it, I had mixed results.

I was able to locate it at the local chain supermarket (National) but the expiration date notwithstanding, when I opened the pkg it often smelled too funny to cook. IIRC it was labeled “Lamb,” not “Mutton.” I think you’d be better off finding it in an ethnic shop or perhaps a place that is purely a butcher shop, not a supermarket.

As also posted, Indians label goat/kid as “mutton” also. When I visited India I had some mutton rolls, which have kid. I remember the guy preparing them had dirty hands. He had one eye that looked like it had succumbed to glaucoma. He was watching something across the street as he absent-mindedly sliced onion and I kept thinking he was going to add a slice of finger to the “salad” but he didn’t.

Well, I was a bit fearful of the health ramifications but I hated to be the ugly American so I took a bite. One word: Nirvana.

Godfrey’s are marginally acceptable, but they don’t compare with McGregor’s.

But then, I’m biased, because I went to school where they are made, so I used to have them regularly for my lunches.

In fact, last time I was in NZ I had one, for the first time in about five years - Mmmmmmmmmmmm…

I asked my colleague, who´s from a family of farmers, and he said they mostly cut it into minced meat and eat it themselves - not a big selling item.

Most of them don´t even send the sheep to the slaughter house, but slaughter them at home.

(This info goes for Iceland - dunno about anywhere else)

Don’t get me started on the great NZ pie - although my preference is for Steak and Bacon (with cheese if I can). When we were visiting last time, I always forgot to fill the hire car while the family were with me, and had to head off on my own to fill up - both the car and me.
No small wonder I am participating in the weight loss thread :smack:

Just a few BP garages (Family Farm on the A34 north of Oxford, for example) in the UK do a Steak slice that vaguely approaches the goodness that is the Kiwi pie. So it is fairly easy to resist. It’s a long way from being able to order a Mince pie and a hot Apple pie from the canteen at school for lunch (occasionally) - but I think I still carry scars on the roof of my mouth from those apple pies <sigh>.

Si

In the UK mutton is available but but only in speciality butchers and mail order. As I understand it, until the 50’s most sheep meat sold was mutton and lamb was a more expensive “luxury” item. As the country got more prosperous mutton became deeply unfashionable and only lamb was bought (not talking about what went into pies etc) so mutton was soon no longer available in the shops. I suspect this also went hand in hand with the closure of actual butchers shops as more and more meat was bought from supermarkets.

These days mutton seems to be making a come back as a gourmet food from traditional breeds of sheep - I’ve seen it turn up on a couple of cooking programmes - but I still haven’t seen it in Tescos or even Waitrose.

Should have said, in answer to the OP, sheep meat does get tougher as the animal gets older. Hence the emphasis on very high quality meat and gourmet cooking to get the best out of it in the recent revival.

Interesting…my late uncle was in the US Army, stationed in the south Pacific. His camp was adjacent to an Autalian Army camp-and the GI’s regularly got invites to mess-my uncle said how he cound’t stand the smell of mutton.

My wife and I moved into a neighborhood with an ethnic mix of people from various countries of the Middle East, Mexicans and Koreans. And we’ve learned we love lamb. There are 3 halal butcher shops in a 2 block radius, and all of them advertise “Lamb” rather than mutton, and most of them seem to prefer New Zealand lamb. We were talking with the Palestinian owner of a favorite restaurant, who served the most wonderful lamb chops, about his lamb. He claimed that US sheep farmers were raising “lean” lamb, and that uric acid gathers in the sheep’s fat. If the sheep is too lean, it remains in the meat and imparts a nasty flavor to the meat. The barbecued “mutton” at Gates BBQ in Kansas City most definitely had a downright pissy flavor to it.

Americans are used to eating the relatively mild chicken and pork, and think the utterly flavorless filet mignon is the height of beefy luxury. Of course the strong flavor of adult sheep will be distasteful.

</recently ate bear and sea turtle>

I’d bet the middle-eastern butcher in Haymarket has it… but I have no idea what that are looks like. The last time I was there, the raised central artery was still standing.

I like the taste of mutton better, but you have to look for it, as other posters said, it’s not sold as it’s not popular.

What specificaly makes mutton smell & taste funny?

If this is any help, I think the particular flavor that some are bothered by tastes exactly like wool smells: i.e., like lanolin. I have no idea if there’s an actual connection or not. Otherwise, it’s just like lamb, amplified.