CHAPTER V 



PREPARING AND SERVING MUTTON AND LAMB FOR 



THE TABLE 



The Producer Should Boost His Own Business 



THROUGH many rural districts, and even in good sized towns through 

 the Central and Western states, it is almost impossible at this time 

 to get an order of mutton or lamb served, when ordered, at the average 

 hotel. The farmer's wife, although she may be a very proficient cooii, 

 seldom knows how to prepare mutton or lamb so it is appetizing. 



Not long ago I asked a traveling man if he ordered mutton or lamb 

 when in the country districts, and he replied : "No, I do not, for I have 

 learned better. There is as much difference as day and night in the 

 ways it is served to you. There is no food more delicious, when it is 

 properly cooked, seasoned and served, but deliver me if the chef does 

 not know his business." 



Such a state of affairs is a crime committed against the sheep busi- 

 ness, and the following remarks and recipes furnished by the United 

 States Government are offered in the hope that they may help to bring 

 mutton and lamb intO' more general favor. 



PALATABLE AND NUTRITIOUS FOODS 



Mutton has from early times been a popular food both in the Orient and among 

 western nations. The ease with which the sheep is raised and the fact that its flesh 

 is not, like some other meats, excluded on religious grounds from the dietary of 

 any large group of people, combine with its palatability to bring it into widespread 

 favor. The terms "lamb" and "mutton" are somewhat loosely used to designate 

 the meat obtained from the younger and older animals. In some localities mutton is 

 used to apply to the flesh of all but young lambs; in others its use is limited to the 

 flesh of full-groWn sheep. The latter is perhaps the commonest usage in the United 

 States. 



The preference for lamb or for mutton, like the use of the terms, varies with the 

 locality. Of late years a preference for lamb to older mutton has been noticeable, 

 particularly in the United States. In England, on the other hand, mutton has always 

 been more commonly used. The popularity of one or the other will probably always 

 be determined by taste, fashion, or market conditions, for both are palatable and 

 nutritious foods. 



The general belief that mutton and lamb are wholesome has been strengthened 

 recently by such work as that of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 whose reports of meat inspection show that it has been necessary to reject relatively 

 few mutton carcasses as unfit for food, and that the sheep is particularly free from 

 diseases which render meat undesirable. 



PREPARING AND SERVING MUTTON AND LAMB FOR THE TABLE 



Relative Economy In the Use of Mutton 



While mutton and beef do not differ materially in percentage composition or di- 

 gestibility, mutton has an advantage in that it is capable of somewhat more economi- 

 cal use. The mutton carcass, unlike the beef carcass, is of such size that a quarter 



