And the usual followup questions: Arent young lambs more tender, and mild-tasting?
There are surely more misconceptions (and complete nonsense) in circulation concerning lamb and mutton than any other meats. A few years ago I posted a discussion of this topic to one of the sheep Yahoo! Groups. It gets reposted and quoted with some regularity, which indicates that even experienced sheep people are not always clear on this topic. Like beef, flavor develops with age. It is ironic that people who would never buy veal (too bland!) will insist on the sheep equivalent of veal! This attitude, however, is a perfectly logical reaction to bad experiences with poorly-finished, bad-tasting sheep (i.e., If the flavors not that great, lets get a young one thats got less of it.). University studies, with properly grown and finished lamb, have shown the highest satisfaction with hoggets (aged 9 to 12 months) and yearlings (aged 12 months to 2 years). This is older than most lamb sold in markets. Our experience has been that a properly-grown and finished lamb is going to taste good, i
