It’s hit and miss here in my neighborhood in Chicago. The two grocery stores I typically shop at do not usually have it (sometimes they do stock it, but not usually. Goat, on the other hand, I can find regularly at one of them). Another one down the street usually does, but it’s freaking expensive. If I want lamb, I drive a few miles down to the halal butcher, where the prices are about 1/2 to 2/3 of the grocery store down the street.
Lamb is definitely not a meat I expect to find at most grocery stores.
Weird. My grocery shopping life has been spent in NYC and LA, and I always notice the lamb because I don’t like it and I get grossed out just having to look at the raw meat.
Goat is definitely a specialty thing for me, though I’m sure it’s actually totally common in Mexican/Central American markets where I don’t usually shop.
Duck is available either at a place like Whole Foods, my local fish purveyor (which also carries frozen duck/goose/quail/etc. for some reason), or you go down to Chinatown where they are ten times cheaper and fresh killed. Head’s on, though, that kind of freaks me out.
I knew my old neighborhood in the Bronx was changing when the local supermarket had a special on goat meat. (Also when the kids playing stickball at the playground were wearing turbans.)
I think all three places I’m thinking of carry duck in the frozen section, along with cornish game hens. Fresh duck, though, yeah, typically more Whole Foods types of places.
I can’t remember ever showing at a supermarket that didn’t carry lamb. Usually chops, legs, stew meat, and maybe ribs. I enjoy lamb, and have heard it is less likely to be factory farmed, so I buy it regularly. I’ve shopped for meat up and down the northeast.
Duck is a specialty item. I might find it frozen, or at an especially good supermarket. Same with bison.
Goat is hard to find. I’d probably look for an “ethnic” market if I wanted it. Goat is okay, but not my favorite. Or I imagine I could special order it from the same places where I can order goose.
There used to be a specialty butcher in the area that carried rabbit and venison (frozen) but they’ve closed. I rather like rabbit, and think the flavor is mild and accessible, and have wondered why it’s not more widely available. I understand why venison isn’t more available (hard to farm, stronger flavor), but rabbit?
I don’t think that you can “factory farm” sheep. They need a field with grass to thrive in, but with most ewes producing twins each year, the return can be fairly good for not a lot of effort. If they are grazed on open country, some farmers will only see their sheep a couple of times a year. They are not penned or branded but they are “hefted” which gives them an innate sense of where they belong.
I was looking at an American recipe book last week and was surprised to see roast leg-of-lamb treated as a rare delicacy.
Rabbit was popular here before and during WW2. After that it lost favour as it had been the most common form of meat for years - it was also seen as ‘poor man’s meat’. As a consequence, the population grew and became a nuisance (undermining railway embankments etc) so some bright spark decided to infect them with myxomatosis. The sight of diseased rabbits in the last throes before death was the last straw.
I forget, but I think it was Minneapolis (large muslim propulation) I was there once and I think it was Costco that had large complete goat carcasses in the freezer for sale - halal certified. (Sort of like how even Coca Cola was kosher certified in the New York City area)
And everywhere I’ve looked in Trader Joes they had rack of lamb too…
Can the elk-eaters say what neck of the US they are in? I ordered it a resort in Montana, I think, and I always thought, until reading this thread, that it was a menu item more for a cultural-local resort vibe for tourists than anything else.
The preference/availability for venison as a general thing in England is interesting. Trying to think why…the class memory of venison (always the mark of the upper class table, if not forbidden to most inhabitants) stuck with it, and being available for peons was part of its success gastronomically?
*Those who had it eating out, not by hunting the animal themselves, and I type all of this because I originally wrote elk-eaters-out)
I ate last night at a restaurant that had farm-raised venison on the menu. The Convict Lake Resort, located near Mammoth Lakes, CA. The farm is in Montana.
I have had elk in (at least) NV, CA, OR. The last elk I had (and probably the only place most have heard of) was an elk burger at Deschutes Brewery, Bend, OR. A friend just went elk hunting, he wasn’t successful so I don’t have any in my freezer.
Snipped. Reindeer is delish. The steaks are tender and juicy, dark and full of flavor. The leg meat and tougher cuts makes for good stew meat. The heart and meat is often cured. I’ve also eaten ribs - dried and salted, then soaked, steamed and seared. Mmmmmm! Sami people used to make a cheese out of the milk, but I don’t think it’s very common anymore. The cheese was incredibly tough and dry, so they would put it in their coffee or broth to soften it up and make it edible.
Reindeer aren’t farmed. They’re tagged and range free in the tundra. The warming climate has caused the tree line to move north, causing overgrowth of shrubs, limiting the growth of plants the reindeer eat and making food more difficult to get to. It could also cause migration of competitive species and predators, further limiting their range and bringing new (for the reindeer anyway) parasites along with them. And, lets not forget extreme weather. Things are not looking so bright for the reindeer, at least not in Norway. They might have to become farm animals, if we let the climate continue to warm up. Oh well, the mosquito’s are happy.
Herding is still a form of agriculture - this is no different than cattle in the Old West. Plus I’ve seen some fully domesticated draft reindeer which live on farms in Finland year-round. Not as many as the freeroaming stock, but they are even physically different, I was told.
(Also when the kids playing stickball at the playground were wearing turbans.)