Another factor may be predators, the South Western region has many more things trying to eat you than Europe. Perhaps sheep herding was less viable than cattle that could better defend itself. Even fairly small preditors can take sheep down.
And cows provided milk to New England farmer/settlers. They raised sheep as well, but half of the cattle born were male and only a couple were needed for breeding, so they defaulted into becoming food or beast of burden.
Just some thoughts, no cites.
Worth mentioning, since this is the thread for it, that in addition to the terms ‘lamb’ and ‘mutton’, there is also ‘hogget’ - which is the meat of a sheep older than 11 months and less than 2 years.
I don’t think I have ever seen this offered for sale though
There might be a lot of merit to that. After all, the Texas Longhorn is a breed that was essentially Spanish cattle gone feral over a few hundred years in South/West/Central Texas, and it did rather well. I can’t say that I know of any feral sheep in the Southwest, although there are indigenous sheep like the Bighorn.
Around the Civil War, a lot of cattle ranching consisted of rounding up the feral cattle, branding them, and then eventually driving them northward to places like Abilene and Dodge City.
Isn’t that the farmer’s name in the Babe movies?
Yes, and a hogget is also a pig of the same age.
Hoggette is sorta like Smurfette.
Ahh. I see.
Finally coming together for me.
I can’t find any reference to that meaning - where are you getting that?
Oops, you’re right. I’m mixed up. Thanks for the correction.
You see, when definitions run into marketing, marketing always wins.
Determining the age of sheep is not done with a calendar but by dentition. The relationship is fairly close and dentition vs age is a good indication of the conditions the stock have been raised in.
Sheep have 8 front incisors, with a milk set progressively replaced by a permanent set.
Traditionally a lamb remained a lamb until it lost the front incisors and the permanent ones erupted. At this point it’s termed imaginatively a “two tooth”.
(by about 2 years of age the next pair are replaced and the animal is described as a “four tooth”, then progressively “six tooth” and finally “full mouths”)
Traditionally an Australian lamb remains a lamb until it loses a baby tooth, and a permanent tooth starts to erupt, then is defined as hogget or mutton – although hogget is a term used mostly on-farm/in trade and isn’t employed when marketing sheep meat.
Our cunning cousins, the Kiwis used a slight variant, defining lamb as “young sheep under 12 months of age or which do not have any permanent incisor teeth in wear”.
The “permanent teeth in wear” is the key because because 1) that status can be determined by inspection, and 2) when raised in good pasture conditions permanent teeth appear can be delayed substantially.
Under the previous definitions NZ lamb could be several weeks older than an Aus lamb, which lead to the move to harmonise for sake of international trade competitiveness.
Australians eat around 9kg of lamb per annum and are one of the worlds largest consumers per capita and generally do not eat mutton. 95% of local mutton is exported.
I’m surprised none of the responses included, ‘my Dad had it in the army and swore never to eat it again/forbid the wife from ever making it!
I have both an uncle, and a father in law, who fit this profile.
My Daddy famously got his Irish Stew recipe from a cook in the Marine Corps.
His name was Freddy Murray. Daddy always said he was one Mac away from being a famous (ala’ Fred McMurray) movie star.
The problem with the Irish Stew is the recipe was for about 2000. Daddy worked years to get the proportions right.
We loved it. Of course lambs were never mentioned while the aroma was floating around or at the meal itself.
That’s something I would expect for SPAM®.
I like SPAM®.
My Daddy hated SOS.
shit on a shingle
In the other thread on mutton, I stated that my father-in-law couldn’t eat lamb after being served mutton too many times in the boarding house he lived in (after he got out of the service).
Lamb? Never had it in the Army. Probably had horse in Germany, though (not sure, don’t really care). But if you’re judging by Army food, steak is absolute garbage and why would anyone ever want to eat it? I’m not kidding, either – I didn’t learn to appreciate steak until I was 27 years old and was forced to eat steak regularly while on a jobsite.
Nice work if you can get it.
Obviously it’s a little hyberbolic, but I was working in a foreign country and we foreigners tended to hang out a lot, especially before I started to learn Spanish. The easy choice after a long day was the hotel’s Argentine restaurant (which in Mexico really means “steak restaurant”).
It was actually at another restaurant there that I accidentally ordered carpaccio and learned to appreciate non-well-done meat.