On Sheep

[phouka]

@Smeghead

Yeah, I know. I was just kiddin’ around.

Baaaaaaaaad poster. Ewe should be ashamed of yourself.

[BrainGlutton]

Mystery to me too. I posted a CS thread – no satisfactory answer. Why can’t you get mutton in the U.S.? http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=293673

[Askance]

@phouka

Baaaaaaaaad poster. Ewe should be ashamed of yourself.

No need to ram it home, is there?

[Fridgemagnet]

For all things flossy, I like to refer to the National Sheep Association. All the different British models are listed, and they’re quite varied. Mountain sheep have legs longer on one side than the other, and come in clockwise and counter-clockwise strains.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@medstar

Ask Hal Briston, he seems to have all the answers, as far as sheep are concerned.

Except that he has a different use in mind for them.

[cornflakes]

@TheLoadedDog

When I was a kid, lamb was what you ate if you were growing up poor and working class. Chicken was the luxury. That has now reversed for some reason.

Possibly because of artificial insemination. It might be that lamb was cheap back then because they couldn’t control the breeding as well.

When I was a kid*, my parents used to buy calves for ten to fifteen dollars, raise them and take them to a butcher who would process them for a percentage of the meat. It was the cheapest way to put steak on the table. The cattle were sold for cheap because they were “mistakes”, where a bull and cow somehow got together and made something besides a purebred Angus or Brahma.

• I know,:rolleyes:, many have done better already…

[psychonaut]

I thought readers of this thread might be interested in the following article, which appeared in today’s Guardian:

Mutton makes comeback on menu, with royal approval
It may sound like a dating agency for people of a certain age, but the Mutton Club is in fact a very prestigious group with a famous patron and a worthy aim. Unless, of course, you’re a vegetarian or a sheep.

The club, which held its inaugural dinner at the Ritz hotel in London last night, aims to rekindle our love affair with meat from sheep that have lived a bit.

Although mutton was once the staple diet of many Britons - and prized far above lamb for both its flavour and texture - it has almost disappeared from the nation’s dinner tables and restaurant menus over the past 50 years.

However, the meat has undergone a revival since Prince Charles began championing it several years ago. Last October the British Academy of Gastronomes awarded the prince the Grand Prix of Gastronomy 2005 in recognition of his efforts to put mutton back on the culinary agenda.

The whole article is available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,,1701256,00.html