Lamb. We need more of it.

When I was a kid (no pun intended... oh wait, maybe it was) growing up in New York, lamb chops were one of my favorite meals. It seems we had lamb at least once a week. My wife and I were talking about this the other day, and she echoed the sense I have nowadays that the only place you can find lamb is in a high-end restaurant, and all you get is this little bitty rack with the tiny ribs sticking up, at seven prices. Yeah, it's tasty, but sheesh...

Go on down to Smith's or your local grocery store, and if you're lucky there may be a couple of scrawny blade chops (read: garbage meat) hiding between the beef and pork, or a whole leg for about $45.00. But for all the sheep being raised in this country (5.6 million head in 2010, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service), you'd think there would be a lot more on the shelves. Utah's fields appear to be crawling with sheep - our ranchers here call them "prairie maggots" - but where does all that fine meat go?


The American Lamb Board serves up delightful charts on the various lamb cuts and how to cook them, but I'll be dipped in bees if I've ever seen more than one or two of these in a supermarket at any one time.

Apparently this is due to a combination of factors.

• The lamb market is in a bit of a crisis, and the ASIA (American Sheep Industry Association) is pushing a plan called 2+2+2=Rebuild, which asks that each producer increase the size of their operation by two ewes per operation or by two ewes per 100 by 2014, increase the average birthrate per ewe to two lambs per year and increase the harvested lamb crop rate by 2 percent.
  
• Supply is, ultimately, driven by demand - and in this country, demand seems low. Down in the very dregs of demand, mutton - delicious and desirable in my book - is largely considered trash, suitable for consumption only by blighted minorities or Tolkienesque trolls. Add to this the fact that a good percentage of lamb available here comes from Down Under, either Australia or New Zealand where there are more lambs than people, and it's no surprise that the American lamb scene looks somewhat stressed.
  
• There appears to be a regional difference as well. I have found indications that lamb is much more available and reasonably priced in places like New York, or other cities where there is a larger ethnic population who do not turn up their noses at this fine meat.
  
• Lamb is not just food - it's a commodity, meaning that its price and availability are determined by a byzantine labyrinth of factors such corn prices, hay prices, weather conditions, harvest times, scientific analyses of fat marbling, yields, chemicals, and a host of others, including that one scrap of information that only a sheep farmer would know: sheep are the only animal in the world that want to die.

I have some dear friends that raise these woolly spawn of Hell, I've taken care of them myself, and I've seen all sides of them - from the cute and fluffy and affectionate, to the rampaging, stupid hundredweight bodies that hurl themselves against gates and tread on your feet (or head) with their very sharp hooves, to their absolute Satanic deviousness and ability to find every possible way to get sick or in trouble. But I'm just a city duffer with a love of the outdoors; from the good folks themselves, who do this year round, I have heard stories that would make your skin crawl. A good dog and an unlimited supply of sweet feed appear to be useful.

It seems that the only real answer will be to have a good freezer on hand, and find a local slaughterhouse that will sell me a whole or a half sheep. I'd die and go to heaven if I could score the offal as well, and be able to make my own haggis. But until then, I can only dream...

Writer's Block: Better than leftovers

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Sushi, because of the almost infinite varieties. That's cheating, but suck it down.