Lamb dressed up as mutton

"Mutton is one of the forgotten masterpieces of British protein production. Bloody spring lamb has cornered the market, vaguely sweet, vestigially meaty, utterly gummy; fatless, tasteless, pointless; the perfect meat for today - devoid of interest in every way."

Matthew Fort - The Guardian

David's special Friday night treat is a French lamb stew - that was the brief. And I have found a recipe from the faithful Robert Carrier called Daube de Mouton à l'Avignonnaise. There is no picture in my book - Feasts of Provence - but the two above are said to be the same dish. And I'm a bit nervous because they don't look all that tempting do they? Too late now though. The die is cast.

The recipe got me to to thinking about mutton. For yes that title is for a mutton stew, (lamb in French is l'agneau - a quite different thing). but I am doing lamb because basically I don't think you can get mutton any more. To be fair I was looking for lamb not mutton but I'm pretty sure there was no mutton. We think lamb is better/superior don't we?

So for the quote at the top of the page substitute Australian for British and the same sentiment applies. I'm sure when we first arrived in Australia you could buy mutton - or something called two tooth. I remember thinking then that they were trying to hide the fact that this wasn't lamb but mutton. Which is interesting because that Guardian quote - and several other authors that I have been reading for this post - all maintain that mutton is the superior meat. And yet, hiding the fact that two tooth wasn't lamb implies the opposite. Two tooth by the way is called hogget in England. It's a two year-old sheep. Mutton is older, but there is no strict definition.

I vaguely remember too, from my youth, that mutton was like scrag end of neck, oxtail and rabbit. Food for the poor. Now they are all food for the rich. Swings and roundabouts I suppose.

These days the idea that mutton is the superior meat is not just backed up by subjective rhapsodising about flavour:

"mutton has a broad, rollicking, rolling, ripping, roistering flavour. It has texture and heft. Mutton is mighty; mighty good, mighty delicious, mighty mighty." Matthew Fort - the Guardian.

It is also backed up by scientific fact and/or logic. An older sheep has had time to graze the fields and eat more flavoursome grasses and herbs. Think about those English and French salt marshes, which supposedly produce the best. Therefore it is tastier. Lamb are kept in feed lots and fed grain. It also has more fat, which is good from a taste point of view. And from a scientific point of view it has more of the good things you need including Omega-3 - more than fish in fact.

And another reason it is rarer is that it costs more for the farmer to keep the sheep for longer. Especially if mutton has a poor image. I mean 'mutton dressed as lamb'. Yes the saying has nothing to do with meat everything to do with older women trying to look good - but it is based on the perception that lamb is better than mutton. Every time you say 'mutton' you think of that phrase. Mutton has a reputation for tasteless, tough and bland - the worst of English cooking. And that's really, really hard to shake.

But some brave restauranteurs are trying. In England anyway it's quite a thing apparently and I suspect they are just beginning to talk it up here. At least there are people beginning to produce it and dry age it - which means storing it in humid almost freezing conditions to age before selling. Unlike lamb which goes straight into packaging or straight to the butcher.

Incidentally another thing I noted about the English articles I read was their contempt for Australian meat. Indeed Australian mutton was given as one reason for its decline after WW2. I reckon that would make Australian farmers' blood boil. And it also has to be borne in mind that these articles were proselytising for mutton - I'm sure there are just as fervent people out there singing the praises of lamb - lean, sweet, delicate ...

Australia does produce mutton but it's nearly all exported - for other parts of the world love mutton. And I'm not going to go into the horrors of live sheep exports here, but the middle east is one of the big markets for mutton. India too - where mutton can also mean goat.

Anyway I am about to attempt a stew of lamb dressed up as mutton. I really wanted to do one a bit like the picture below but I couldn't find a suitable recipe and part of this Friday night project is to follow an actual recipe. I do have a lot of tomatoes though - went to the market today - so I'll do a tomatoey potato gratin to go with it I think.