SC - Semi-Rant Re: MMMM, good holiday food!

[Par Leijonhufvud]

> From: "Karen Lyons-McGann" <dvkld.dev at mhs.unc.edu>
> 
> >>Somebody said 'hardly anyone eats lamb'

> Hello!  I'm the someone.  In the southeastern United States, eating lamb 
> is just about unheard of.  Sheep haven't been raised here in the land of 
> cotton in generations, at least not in such numbers that there are very 
> many spare lambs for market.  Sunday is for fried chicken, or country ham 
> or pork barbecue.  It's not so long ago that the only kind of lamb I 
> could find was frozen and  imported all the way from New Zealand!  That's 
> changing now with so many people moving into the the region from all over 
> the US and around the world.  All the stores I usually shop at do sell 
> fresh lamb now, but it's expensive.  Lamb is a meat reserved for those 
> intending to show off their finances  or those immigrants to this region 
> who have a real need to re-create foods traditional to their families.  
> As for kid, I don't think I've ever seen it for sale, though our area has 
> at least 2 goat dairies.  I can think of one market that might just 
> possibly carry it or be willing to find out where they could special 
> order it.
> 
> Anne

I don't know if anyone has addressed this part of the issue (and forgive
me if I'm repeating something somebody else has already said), but there
seems to be a perfectly understandable reason why some parts of the
U.S.A., and the world overall, may have localized sociological aversions
to lamb. Or, for that matter, various other animal foods for similar
reasons.

Haven't you guys ever seen those old Westerns where the cattle herders
look down upon the sheep herders, and vice versa? I know it wasn't
"Shane": that involved generic sodbusters versus ranchers, and my lady
wife, my usual authority on such matters, is drawing a blank at the
moment.

In any case, it occurs to me that the residents of an area where beef
cattle production is one of the primary industries, might not take
kindly to the ecological effects sheep-raising would have on land they'd
like to devote to cattle ranching, and a deep distrust of all matters
ovine might result. This could account for lamb and mutton aversion in
places like Texas and Oklahoma. By extension, you might find similar
feelings in midwestern cities like Chicago, which still has a lot of
beef being processed and/or marketed there.

Similarly, in the American Southeast, where cotton has been a major
industry for hundreds of years, the large-scale raising of wool-bearing
animals may have been similarly discouraged.

Now, what people need to realize that it's perfectly understandable (if
not reasonable, if you know what I mean) to have aversions to foods you
have never personally encountered. Many people who hate liver have never
actually tasted it, and in some cases have never seen it, except in the
form of pet food. My father grew up with a deep suspicion and distrust
of mutton, which he had never eaten. My mother was effectively not
allowed to cook lamb for us, since any enjoyment of it would be
impossible in the face of the old guy's grouching on the subject. It
turns out that at the turn of the twentieth century or thereabouts, some
U.S. Marines were deployed in China to help put down the Boxer
Rebellion. My grandfather was among them, and when he returned home, it
was via an extremely slow transport ship. Due to some kind of error in
the provisioning of the ship, my grandpa was fed mutton at virtually
every meal, for a period of months. He never ate lamb or mutton again,
and would not allow it in his presence. 

As a result, my father grew up secure in the knowledge that lamb was a
Bad Thing, and also banned it from his table until the day my mom bought
and roasted a leg of lamb and served it, without mentioning that it was
not, in fact, beef. This may have been the origin of the "Don't Ask,
Don't Tell" policy, and it worked successfully for quite a while. He
finally found out what was happening years later, by which time he had
to admit he'd grown to like the stuff.

Adamantius
troy at asan.com
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