the.com/mutton
Lamb's older, gamier sibling that nobody invited to the barbecue.
means The meat of a mature sheep, tougher and stronger-tasting than lamb and rarely seen on menus anymore.
from From Old French 'moton' (a sheep), which came from Medieval Latin 'multo' — a word of uncertain, possibly Celtic, ancestry. English borrowed it after the Norman Conquest, when conquered Anglo-Saxon farmers raised the animal under its native name 'sheep' while the Norman-French nobility ate the cooked meat under this borrowed one — a linguistic class split (sheep/mutton, cow/beef, pig/pork) that still structures English today.
- age threshold
- from sheep over two years old
- flavor profile
- stronger, fattier, needs slow cooking to tame
- global status
- menu staple in India, UK rarity today
- supply chain
- often just old lamb mislabeled younger