guest blog- 'Le Mouton' -christopher Fear

 A little over a year ago, we sent off two Herdwick ewes to slaughter. I was stunned by the quality of the meat that came back; it was quite superior to any lamb I had eaten. Feeling rather evangelical about it, I gave my teaching colleague Chris Fear a leg as a barter for writing this wonderful article about the loss of mutton from the British menu. 

Among the many radical and regrettable transformations in British eating habits since the second world war, none is more baffling than the decline of mutton. Lamb of course is just as popular as ever, and more so now that it can be produced and bought all year round and imported from New Zealand with no additional costs passed on to the shopper. The leg of lamb, chops, and mince can be found within twenty minutes from most people’s houses or on the way home from work.

The same has not happened with veal, even though veal is to beef what lamb is to mutton. This is perhaps because many people consider it unethical to eat cattle before they have reached maturity. Yet they think it better to eat lamb than mutton, not for any particularly ethical reason, but because mutton has a reputation for poor quality and toughness. Probably this reputation owes to the fact that the post-war generation, quite inexplicably, began to cook meat quite badly. Mass catering in schools and a creeping culture of convenience at home made careful preparation difficult. The primary casualty of this cultural transformation in kitchens was of course liver, which is still wrongly despised by almost all Britons, who have only ever eaten it overcooked, but mutton may have suffered the same fate. Today the general disinterest in mutton is reflected in one English idiom in particular, “mutton dressed as lamb”, which is almost exclusively applied to women who try and fail to appear younger than they are. “Mutton” here stands for a haggard old ewe. It is a cliché that reinforces a value judgement: why have mutton when you could have lamb?

After slaughter our ewe was hung for three weeks. It is worth explaining why this is so good. Hanging meat is extremely important for its flavour and tenderness. It also reduces the water content, which paradoxically makes it moister when it’s cooked well, and protects it from being damaged by the freezer. Unlike mutton, lamb cannot be hung for very long, because it doesn’t have the fat to protect it from quick deterioration. So it is normally hung for up to seven days, though in the industrialized world of meat production it can be considerably less. People know that supermarket meat isn’t as good, but they can only guess why. The answer is, above all, that it has not been hung for long enough. It therefore lacks flavour, and is full of water, which means it is more easily damaged by the freezer and dries easily when cooked. Relative to hanging time, what the animal has been fed is irrelevant. Mutton can be hung for longer than lamb because there is more fat on it and running through it. The meat is therefore not as “wet” when it reaches you, and it is a beautiful deep oxblood colour, almost wine, and of course a cut of mutton is bigger than its equivalent from a lamb.

Roasting a leg of mutton is straightforward. You preheat the oven and prepare the joint according to your taste (salt, garlic, rosemary, anchovies, olive oil, salt, pepper, and more salt). As with any roast, you need to blast it in a very hot oven for half an hour, then reduce the temperature and cook it long enough but not too long. Then you must rest it. It should be well browned on the outside and pink or preferably rare in the middle, not grey all the way through. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has described and explained the optimal process in a section of his River Cottage Meat Book called, boldly but not inaccurately, “A Theory of Perfection”. He provides the temperatures and timings you need. Traditionally in Britain we do it the other way around from Hugh. We turn the temperature up at the end, in the attempt to get the colour we want. Then, once we’re confident that it’s grey to the bone, we eat it as soon as possible, “while it’s hot”. This is all wrong, and mutton doesn’t respond well to such torture. A high oven drives moisture out of meat that has already been cooking for some time, so it will be dry and tough. (And there is no such thing as “sealing” meat.) Removing it from its cooking juices immediately gives it no chance to re-absorb them. And if it hasn’t been rested, it will bleed onto your plate—unless you have ruined it already. No, no, no. The browning must be done first; the slower cook provides time for any lost and additional liquid (white wine) to be absorbed, and the rest, at least fifteen minutes, gives the juices time to get settled ready for carving, and leaves you time to make gravy. It won’t go cold for ages, don’t worry.

The flavour of mutton still has the unmistakeable sheepiness that you love in lamb. But owing to its relative maturity and to the fact that it has been hung properly (if you have got it from a good source such as Farrantshayes), it also has some characteristics of beef, especially on the outside. It is deeper and more iron-rich than lamb, more serious, more autumnal, where lamb is inescapably sweet and vernal. So mutton can be paired with many red wines that might overpower lamb. The fat doesn’t seem to hang around on the palate so much either—or in the teeth. But is it tough? No, not if you have cooked it correctly. If you have cooked it badly, it will be, but so will lamb, and beef, and pork. In fact, if it has been well hung and properly cooked, it is as tender and moist as the best lamb, and like all lower-half cuts it gives you some margin for error to achieve this. Vegetables are customary, but optional. Wine is customary, and not optional.

Hatherleigh

As we are one of the only Mangalitsa breeders in the South West we were asked to take along an example of the breed to the inaugural 'pig tent' at North Devon Show. The co-ordinator of the tent wanted an example of each of the 12 recognised breed and of course it's a nightmare trying to get a Manga as they're so rare. So we decided that Billy, a castrated boy from Tilly's first litter, would be the show 'exhibit'. He was duly subjected to a wash and brush up, which he was suitably scornful about.

It was a tiring but rewarding day for all of us. To be fair, Billy spent much of it asleep! We met several people wanting to get involved in the breed and buy meat weaners. Of course we were clear (as we always are) that we don't sell breeding stock, though we hope to move into registered purebred Mangas in the not too distant future.

There's been a heatwave in the UK this past week, with temperatures reaching a heady 30 degrees. Unfortunately this coincided with Tilly's due date. When she didn't emerge for breakfast one morning we knew it was time and moved her to the new farrowing pen, where she went without complaint.She seemed a bit quiet, but we attributed this to the heat and set her up an oscillating fan to keep her cool. Late Wednesday night she had nine piglets with relative ease. All seemed well. 

Over the phone the vet advised dousing Tilly with water to keep her cool and monitoring her. Sadly one piglet died overnight and another (the only remaining gilt) was in a bad way. Our lovely vet Fi arrived on Saturday morning, gave Tilly antibiotics and painkiller (she had, it seemed , mastitis, possibly caused by heat stress) and took the little gilt into the surgery to administer IV fluids. Sadly, she too later died. However, our darling Tilly is slowly recovering, up on her feet and drinking. This morning she even ate a few pig nuts. I've been feeding the seven remaining piglets every 2-3 hours, which has been exhausting. And it's now raining and much cooler, so hopefully this little family are on the road to recovery and mum will soon be taking back the reins. Cheeky little Spike seems to still like feeling special and coming out for his bottle; he's a serious cutie so I'm indulging him for now!