Partly. When the U.S. took over large parts of the formerly Spanish colonies, herds of cattle were abandoned and became essentially wild. In the spring, cowboys would round up herds of the feral cattle. If a cow that had your company’s brand had a calf, you would brand the calf with your company’s mark. If an adult animal had your company’s brand, you would herd it to the nearest railroad station and ship it to the meat packers in Chicago. This was all done on open rangeland, which belonged to no one except maybe the federal or state government.
Herding sheep required a year-round investment of time and labor, and sheepherders generally wanted to fence in, and establish ownership of, the land on which their herds grazed.
Ditto this. A lamburger at my hotel in Ahmedabad, India, of all places.
As for the rest of the thread, we’re pretty frequent consumers of lamb. I didn’t realize it was considered unpopular, as it’s sold in mass market places such as Costco, in the fresh meat section, not frozen.
Lamb is popular at our house, too. I often get chops at Costco, and a rack of lamb is our Christmas and/or birthday treat. I like to season chops or roast generously with garlic, rosemary, and mustard.
Yum. Small loin lamb chops grilled medium rare. I think I know what we’ll have for Memorial Day barbecue.
I don’t think my daughter has ever had it, she’s still pretty young though. I’m not sure if she’ll like it or not. Someday I’ll have her try it unless she is horrified by the thought of eating it. I guess I’ll see.
Well, we feasted on lamb shepherd’s pie last night, and the Mrs. and I both declared we couldn’t really tell much difference between my lamb and beef versions. But it was delicious.
Lamb is an everyday meat here - lamb chops are a standard part of a braai, leg of lamb is a popular Sunday roast, lamb is often used in Cape Malay curries and other dishes, and lamb kidneys and liver are popular offals. I find the idea of it as exotic, expensive or weird-tasting to be strange.
The last time I made it I picked up a shank along with the ground beef, then roasted it in the oven and made a stock. Using that in the recipe really helped lambify the flavor.
My Daddy made a good Irish stew with lamb.
That’s my only experience with it.
We never told my kids for fear of little lambs bouncing around in their collective thoughts. From county fairs and story books. They ate it like there was no tomorrow.
I wasn’t really fond on the meat. I’ve eaten venison and goat plenty. Don’t really like that, either.
My favorite meats are the stuff in a Taco Bell tacos. And the dog in a Sonic corndog. Yeah. That’s it.
Well, I tried to track this down and the only research on it that I can find - as I’m reading it - is a big “Dunno”.
In general, it seems to be that sheep were the dominant ruminant livestock in Spain pretty much from Roman times to, even, relatively modern times. It also seems that the Spaniards did bring sheep over and set up lots of ranches for them. It also looks like there wasn’t any “weird quirk of history” thing going on where, for example, it just so happened that the people who moved from Spain to the New World just tended to mostly come from cattle ranching territory. They didn’t.
In reading through a few different websites, it sounds like sheep from the Iberian peninsula who were introduced to the New World all thrived primarily in high altitude regions. I read that they really took off, for example, in Peru (though whether that’s still true I don’t know). The link above notes that sheep did well in Mexico in the North Central region and I see that, today, most sheep in Mexico seem to be raised near Oaxaca. Checking a topological map of Mexico, these both seem to be the center of the highest altitude ranges in the country.
Minus anything more authoritative, my sense would be that somehow cattle just did better in the lowlands of Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico. If they grew like rabbits in those zones and sheep didn’t, then that’s just how the cookie crumbled?
