I love lamb - that looks luscious!

That meal looks delicious.

Yum!

My favourite meat! Lovely.

Ohhhhh, YUM!!!!!

Very nice!

I like the flavor combination.

That is a beautiful plate.

dcarch

Nice presentation. I love lamb - chops, shank, stew, meatballs - and your post came on the heels of my thinking about my childhood. I grew up eating lamp chops, sometimes twice a week, but in speaking to many of childhood friends, few ever had lamb even today. So I'm wondering, is lamb that rare on our tables? Are we lamb eaters the exception?

In attempting to answer these critical culinary questions let me add some more. Think about the menus in the various restaurants you've eaten in recently, especially the steakhouses. How many of them have lamb on the menu? How often do you eat it at home?

Martha - thanks for opening this train of thought. I'm heading to the butcher this morning it get some chops and perhaps a boneless leg of lamb to be jerked.

I live in cow country . . . lamb is rare here and mostly non-natives eat lamb (i.e. people from the East Coast, West Coast) for Midwesterners seem to have an aversion to lamb. It is NEVER in our grocery stores (although Sam's and Costco carry it) except perhaps at Easter and then they'll have overpriced legs for sale. I got mine from a farm that raises them here and sells mostly at Farmers Markets in the city where lamb is eaten more often but not all that often -- midwesterners are midwesterners and we're beef people!

That looks delicious. I really need to cook more lamb, not sure why I don't.

Lamb is very common in Australia, and was even more so when we first arrived here nearly 50 years ago. My mother loathed lamb, and as butchers then tended to keep all the different meats together in the same refrigerator, even the beef tasted like lamb to her as the flavour would migrate over. Minced meat was especially problematic as the butchers would mince all their trimmings from beef and lamb together. She nearly became a vegetarian.

I didn't try lamb until I was about 14, at a friend's farm. Back then it was common for farmers to kill and butcher their own meat, as farms here are very large like the farms in your west, with long distances to travel to town. I helped catch a sheep for our dinner and watched my friend's Dad dispatch it, hang and gut it (my friend thought I'd be ill but instead I thought it was fascinating :-) ) and then break it down for the oven, fridge and freezer. I loved it and still do :-)

Nice presentation Martha.....have just added lamb on my to buy list.....we do like lamb very much......our local grocery never has it...find in "town" stores. Not many restaurants ( hardly any) offer lamb on the menu. We find it on the Outback menu and I order then. Thanks for the lamb reminder.

Beautiful looking meat, Martha. There isn't much lamb in the stores here, and it's usually of poor quality and poorly cut, although it is still very expensive. We do get a big shipment of 2nd-rate leg of lamb around Easter time, but otherwise blade chops are all that ever appears here.

I was 12-13 when I first tasted lamb. We were visiting friends in Sacramento during the time that we lived at Lake Tahoe. Don't remember much about it other than I didn't much like it. Bought and tired lamb chops in my 20's and again in my 30's. Didn't like it. IMO, it smells bad, really really bad.

But, I'm gonna' try it again. Just because Martha's picture makes it look so good!

Grew up in New Jersey and lamb was a regular meat at our table. I particularly crave my mother's "breast of lamb stew" but can't seem to buy those lamb "spare ribs" she used.
When I came to Iowa I was told that all the lamb I saw in the fields was for "the rich people back east". I finally talked my husband into buying a lamb from a farmer and having it packed for out freezer. The farmer had no idea about lamb and insisted it should be 6 months old before butchering.....and my then it was akin to mutton, and I learned why Iowans don't like lamb!
I do now see lamb chops or shanks on the menu in finer restaurants and steak houses here and much more in Chicago. But you're right...in the mid-west it's beef, pork and chicken....and venison and pheasant if you hunt!

Not too many people like lamb.

I have entered and won many cooking competitions, except when I made lamb.

BBQ and smoked meats competitions are very popular with huge prices. They are alway about beef, pork or chicken. I have never seen lamb featured.

Lamb is more tender, and less expensive than beef. I have leg of lamb in the freezer, $2.99 a lb.

dcarch

Technically, lamb is meat from a sheep under one year old, hogget is from a sheep aged between one and two years old, and mutton is a two year old or older sheep. There's actually a definition according to how many teeth they have and how worn they are but age is close enough.

I quite like a roasted leg of hogget, as it's still tender and larger than a lamb leg. Mutton makes a brilliant curry as it benefits from long, slow cooking and doesn't fall apart.

We started seeing more lamb here just a couple of years ago. When I moved to White Cloud I never saw lamb in the (small independent) grocery store there, not a single time in the 30 years I lived there. The neighboring town would have lamb in August, right after they bought a couple from the 4H kids at the County Fair Auction, but they only bought a couple because they seldom sold it, it would go into the freezers for the 3 people in the county that would buy it for Easter.

Now the local Meijer always has a couple of packages, I bought Elery a couple of shoulder chops for $2.99 a pound yesterday, he loves the stuff. I don't. I've tried it rare and well done, roasted and grilled and smoked (which no one would eat, not even the dogs, so that's probably why they don't have it at BBQ places!). If it's heavily marinated and seasoned, I can eat a couple of bites, other than that, the smell puts me off. I'll actually gag while chewing a piece. So I'll have something else while Elery has lamb. The dogs love it too, and happily share his, so there are not leftovers to deal with.

When I was a child we didn't eat lamb either, my Grandmother detested the stuff. Elery's family never had lamb when he was small in Tennessee/Kentucky either. I could easily buy a local lamb here and have offered to put one in the freezer and cook it for Elery more often, but since I won't eat it, he doesn't want me to cook it just for him.

So, once again, it seems that taste is not objective, it's subjective. People just like what they like and thank goodness for that.

Martha, Elery says your chops look delicious, and like Dcarch, I think your plate is lovely.

Annie

I grew up with British parents and roast leg of lamb was often a Sunday dinner staple. Leftovers generally got made into a curry :-) Mom also made Lancashire hotpot in winter, a lamb stew featuring layers of potatoes, onions and lamb, slow cooked until it melted in your mouth!! Although I try very hard to recreate it, I cannot quite match the remembered flavor of hers........delicious!

I like lamb a lot and it easily obtainable here. My local grocer does marinated lamb skewers that i grill and eat as souvlaki with pita and tzatziki and I love lamb burgers. And rack of lamb is one my favorite selections for a special dinner at better restaurants in the area.

Lamb is more tender, and less expensive than beef. I have leg of lamb in the freezer, $2.99 a lb.

Hah! Around here the "special" on leg of lamb the one time of year it's available is usually $9 to $10 lb.. And that's usually for very muttony lamb, too.

ETA Gardengal, I used to love Lancashire hot pot when I lived in London.

I DID NOT grow up eating lamb -- Mom bought it as a young married and hated it (but I think it was mutton not lamb) and refused to ever fix it again. When I was in my 20s lamb chops were in supermarkets where I lived (still in the Midwest) and I bought some (for they ate a lot of lamb chops in the British mysteries I read) and loved it. And have been eating lamb ever since!

My dad was a farm boy and never wanted veal or lamb in the house so I never had it til after I was married. Found I liked it a lot and til this day often have some chops or a rack in the freezer as my grocery store carries a nice selection.

I live in Pennsylvania German territory and PA German taste in food absolutely does not include lamb. So the farmers' markets and local butchers don't have it. There's a little in the supermarkets, and Costco has it. I loved lamb chops and lamb stew as a child. Stew needs lamb shoulder, but is not around. Sometimes Giant has shoulder chops, but they arrive already sliced thin. For a limited time, a local fancy store had some from a start-up farm that is, I think, kind of "new to lamb." We'll see.

It's funny to me how much people around here dislike lamb. Usually they sort of shudder, unless they have Italian or Greek or Irish roots!

Funny about the dogs not eating smoked lamb. One time I bought a 'Lamb & Rice' version of the same brand of kibble as we always buy. Dogs were NOT impressed. I finally had to buy their regular kibble and mix it with the lamb to get rid of it.

First time I had lamb in my early 20's at EL Morocco in Worcester, MA my husband had to pull over on the way home (from what was supposed to be a special night out) so I could throw up. Can't remember what the meal involved. A few years later I made a recipe for moussaka using ground lamb and we couldn't eat it. My brother still talks about how incredibly bad it was.

We had a friend from South America who was a good cook. He grilled shish kabobs with lamb marinated with herbs, garlic, and a lot of lemon and they were delicious.

My husband did not grow up eating lamb, but he really enjoys it and if it's on the menu of a restaurant he'll almost always order it. I have sampled rack of lamb, braised lamb shanks, lamb stew, lamb chops from his plate. It's hit or miss for me.

He has found these little lamb chops from New Zealand at a local supermarket that he cooks for me and I do like them if they're cooked beyond rare. He puts an herb rub on them, browns them well and makes a really good sauce.

Here's the recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/74037/lamb-chops-with-balsamic-reduction/

In the sheep barn, or right next to it at the Iowa State fair, there is a booth selling "lamb things" Kebobs and lamb burgers. The burgers are delicious!! Unfortunately that food stand is not on the main concourse and is not nearly as popular as the "pork chop on a stick" or the "roast beef sundae" or the "smoked turkey drumstick"....I hope it is still there next time I go to the fair!

As a kid, Lamb rib chops were always a quick and easy meal...broiled, served with a baked potato and a vegetable it was a busy day meal and little kids loved picking it up in their fingers and chewing the crispy bits from the bone!

"In the sheep barn, or right next to it at the Iowa State fair, there is a booth selling "lamb things""

Hmmmm........maybe they have it in such an out of the way location to encourage the neighboring sheep to perform their best in the show ring. Lest they wind up on a skewer as somebody's dinner :-))

LOL!!! I thought "things" was going to be a euphemism, not a catchall word. :)

I grew up eating as much lamb as beef. My mother bought both by the side, butchered and cryovac'd. (every spelling rule I use for that looks more wrong). The great thing about buying by the side, is you get all the different cuts and all the different dishes, including short ribs, kebobs, roasts, etc.

When other kids were asked "what's your favorite food?" most said "ice cream!". Mine was double cut rib lamb chops. Still is to a great extent. The Whole Foods near me get the lovely wee NZ lamb nice months out of the year (and okay but not stellar Icelandic the rest of the time, which I rarely bother with), and I treat myself now and then, even at the ridiculous price they go for.

People talk about "great Colorado lamb" all the time, but I've never had any that wasn't a week away from being mutton. (Before today, I'd never seen the word "hogget". It's even rare to find the word mutton in the US, and most people here use the word mutton for anything over a year, though perhaps those in the meat industry have more words.)

I was happy to learn the word "hogget" too.

Those chops look yummers!!

I grew up eating lamb, mom & dad loved it. I still cook it at least twice a month - shoulder chops, steak, ground, shanks... on occasion even a leg (which will seriously last a few meals). Mother hated mint on her lamb, so I never learned to prefer it with mint. Rosemary, garlic - or Indian preparations.

One year I bought a half lamb from a local farmer. Want to do that again!

Hogget - new word to me, too. Back in the 70s when the family went to Scotland, we enjoyed mutton, too. (And, yes, haggis...)

I don't care for traditional vinegar based mint sauce all that much, but I do like mint stirred into unsweetened Greek yoghurt.

My daughter's very favorite stuffed animal was "Lambie" so no lamb here.

That reminds me that my son when he was little asked me to stop cooking ducks. I did, for quite a while.

Westsider, that's funny. My daughter's favorite stuffed animal was "Skunkie". (grin) No problems around dinner with that! She still has Skunkie too, somewhat the worse for wear.

Annie

I grew up eating lamb, mostly special occasion, but regularly. Then IT happened when I was 23. I ground some leftover lamb, mixed with mayo, made sandwiches, and took them to the ballgame in warm weather. Ate sandwiches, got sick - even at 23 I should have known better. To top it off, I was about 9 weeks pregnant at the time. I hadn't had morning sickness before that, but after I was sick as a dog for the next 5 months, morning, noon, and night. I lost 10 lbs in my 4th month. That poor lamb became decidedly unattractive even though I knew the lamb wasn't at fault, the mayo was, or, more precisely, I was.

After about 30 years I could eat lamb if someone else made it, like at a middle eastern restaurant. Now, 42 years later, those lamb chops look yummy. I might try fixing lamb again all these years later.

When I was about 12 I liked to cook and experiment. So I saw a recipe for moussaka and tried to make it. The recipe called for sautéing the eggplant. Well, it soaked up a ton of oil and was terrible We ate it but it was gross flash forward 40 years, and moussaka made wth lamb is my 'signature' dish and even people who don't think they would like it, love it. Except m y fussy Mother who won't even try it. Really, 40 years ago? But she is the most stubborn person in the universe. My father insists that he won't eat lamb - he says it tastes like wool?

Great story, Louise. :) I had an uncle like that. Insisted he didn't like lamb. So my mother never told him he was eating lamb. "Meat" is such a lovely, flexible word. ;) He always had seconds of lamb. I wonder if the lamb he was getting elsewhere was hogget?

I'm new here. I saw seagrass_gw's recipe for lamb chops with balsamic reduction & that inspired our Father's Day dinner last night. It's a definite keeper, even if I did smoke up the house. I'm lucky that as a kid I never associated Shari Lewis' "Lamb Chop" with lamb chops on a plate, because I loved both of them.

For those who think lamb smells/tastes too strong, it's the fat that has almost all of the smell/taste. Try the lamb tenderloin, you'll find it much milder. Wonderful sear-roasted or grilled with a pomegranate molasses glaze.

Because my DH grew up in HK with a half-British stepfather, the ONLY lamb he likes is strongly-flavored, gamy lamb. We get a lot of lamb out in Northern CA that is so mild you really can't tell it from beef. Both of us prefer lamb with some "ooomph."

But that's also because the beef out here is pretty "meh". We have great salads but lousy steakhouses, LOL.

I do an intense curry paste - don't ask me for a recipe, since I make it differently every time, depending on what I have on hand - and rub it over rack of lamb or lamb chops. Yummy!

We both hate mint sauce, although I once had a good savory one from a restaurant which was a nice surprise.