Mountain lamb tastes better than lowland lamb

Siamsa Sessions

Had an interesting chat with a chef yesterday re the taste of different types of lamb.

He’s working in a high-end restaurant and only buys mountain lamb from a nearby supplier. He said he never puts lowland lamb on the menu coz it tastes bland.

The mountain lamb is sweeter and he reckons you can taste the herbs they’ve been eating.

I’m not 100% convinced the taste is that different but there must be something to it at the same time.

Anyway, he also said Kerry mountain lamb has a more game-like taste and mountain lambs from Mayo/Connemara have a salty flavour.

They’re good stories to sell but is there a little truth or a lot of truth to them?

John_Rambo

I've moved from beef to lamb, my feeble effort to help with global warming and have an interest in different breeds. I visit Achill a few times a year and always stock up on Achill lamb which has been marketed as superior, or just different because of the lichens and mosses the lamb eats.

I certainly can taste a difference from Wexford lamb that I source. Not better or worse, but just a different taste but I'm not sure if it's the breed or the fact that the diet is different.

I could be wrong, but I think I'm tasting Suffolk Downs from Wexford and Scottish Blackface in Achill. A farmer told me this.

I'd be keen to try very lean lamb. I have it in Italy when I visit... very lean, the cutlets are longer with very little fat.

I've actually posted about it here before with some help from farmers.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=103359401

I'm involved in food marketing at the moment mainly in the photography and creative design end of things and seriously feel that Irish lamb should be marketed like the Spanish market their Iberian meats. Irish lamb is extremely high end, the constancy is superb, New Zealand lamb hasn't a patch on it.

Lano Lynn

best lamb I had this year was mayo horny year old

Birdnuts

Makes sense since mountain flocks have far more access to natural herb rich grasslands compared to the majority of lowland flocks that typically are reared on intensive, species poor grassland.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Had an interesting chat with a chef yesterday re the taste of different types of lamb.

He’s working in a high-end restaurant and only buys mountain lamb from a nearby supplier. He said he never puts lowland lamb on the menu coz it tastes bland.

The mountain lamb is sweeter and he reckons you can taste the herbs they’ve been eating.

I’m not 100% convinced the taste is that different but there must be something to it at the same time.

Anyway, he also said Kerry mountain lamb has a more game-like taste and mountain lambs from Mayo/Connemara have a salty flavour.

They’re good stories to sell but is there a little truth or a lot of truth to them?

A lot will depend on how the lamb is served. If it's served covered in a sauce, then any old bit of lamb will do the trick because I think it's difficult to taste the lamb in the background.

But lamb on its own, as the centerpiece of the meal, you'd be looking for a flavour out of it on its own. We would always kill a few lambs of our own here every year and we would tend to go for older ram lambs and Vendeen or Vendeen cross or else we wouldn't bother.

The lamb that seems in favour atm does seem too young and bland to me but I wouldn't be putting any sauces or spices on it anyway. It's some shock to buy some meat in a restaurant and ask to hold the sauce, it's pretty terrible stuff.

Igotadose

Blasket Island lamb's amazingly good.

Birdnuts

Igotadose wrote: »

Blasket Island lamb's amazingly good.

Again they would be grazing on natural herb rich pastures - its also worth noting that such flocks often have a lot less issues with worms and other parasites compared to more intensive systems

Cran

Nicest lamb I eaten is 8-12 month old pedigree Charollais ewe lambs, can let them age and into weight without to much fat but just enough to give flavor. Always put the pedigree Charollais culls in the freezer here, and to family and few friends.
I would think what is said more based on less meal, find heavily fed early season lamb bland compared to similar aged grass lambs later on. Have never found hill lamb any tastier than lowland, tbh to get decent age & weights would get to fat.

orm0nd

favourite here would be vendeen X followed by HD X , eventhough we haven't any this year,

put some texel X belclare in the freezer this time and must admit it's quite tasteless compared to above

deffo a difference in breeds and where the lamb was sourced

Siamsa Sessions

Interesting discussion. Seems there’s something to hill lambs if they’re actually fed on the mountain and something to older lambs if they’re not pushed with too much meal.

Apart for eating it yourself or selling it to a chef/restaurant who can taste the difference, it probably doesn’t matter to most consumers who will look at the price of it more than its provenance

Doctors room ghost

I do eat a lot of lamb.every sort I can get.ive paid top dollar for mountain reared,seaweed and herb fed cuts down the years or whatever waffle they are marketing.once bought expensive cuts from a mayo man who reared and killed his own on an island without naming names.muck they were.even the dogs weren’t gone on them.
The nicest lamb I can get for nice simple flavour is Galway lambs off the Galway ewe.lovely flavour with lovely fat on the cuts.

AntrimGlens

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Had an interesting chat with a chef yesterday re the taste of different types of lamb.

He’s working in a high-end restaurant and only buys mountain lamb from a nearby supplier. He said he never puts lowland lamb on the menu coz it tastes bland.

The mountain lamb is sweeter and he reckons you can taste the herbs they’ve been eating.

I’m not 100% convinced the taste is that different but there must be something to it at the same time.

Anyway, he also said Kerry mountain lamb has a more game-like taste and mountain lambs from Mayo/Connemara have a salty flavour.


They’re good stories to sell but is there a little truth or a lot of truth to them?

Think you're doing something similar to myself at the minute Siamsa. All the chefs i'm working with and supplying have moved to mountain lamb when they can get it, but it's more of an ageing thing with them rather than a specific breed or grazing system.
I'm supplying them with scottish blackface wethers and they're really only starting to come ready for killing now having been born in the last week in March. If you left a texel or suffolk that length of time, it would be up on 30kgs and too heavy, so it's about slow ageing and the hill grazing.

I supplied ten lamb bellies to a chef a couple of weeks ago for a supper club and he turned them into fancy hotdogs which tasted delicious, for what is one of the cheapest cuts of the lamb. He's originally from Kerry but chefed in spain and london most of his life and says he could taste the heather from the samples I had given him when we first stated doing business, said it tasted just like his grandfathers lamb from years ago.

I think there is something in it, but again much more can be made of it through marketing, branding and imagery.

Anyway best of luck with the venture, it's not easy but pm me if you want to know any more.

wrangler

orm0nd wrote: »

favourite here would be vendeen X followed by HD X , eventhough we haven't any this year,

put some texel X belclare in the freezer this time and must admit it's quite tasteless compared to above

deffo a difference in breeds and where the lamb was sourced

I'd agree about the vendeen, it seems to have a diifferent flavour, we've also texel and lleyn here but only put vendeen x in the freezer.
I don't like a gamey taste like deer or Pheasant or even too much herbs in my food. I've had connemara lamb and wouldn't like it for that reason

farawaygrass

We stayed in connamara for 2 nights about 7 years ago and for the first time I had lamb shank, both nights (locally reared it said on the menu). Anyhow I don’t know used ye watch how I met your mother, and the episode where they forgot where they had the “best” burger ever and were trying to find the restaurant again. That’s kinda like me. I try shank most times now If I see it on the menu but nothing comes close to the two I ate then

Addle

Lamb is my favorite meat and the best I taste is from home in Roscommon.

http://roscommonlambfestival.com/

toleratethis

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Had an interesting chat with a chef yesterday re the taste of different types of lamb.

He’s working in a high-end restaurant and only buys mountain lamb from a nearby supplier. He said he never puts lowland lamb on the menu coz it tastes bland.

The mountain lamb is sweeter and he reckons you can taste the herbs they’ve been eating.

I’m not 100% convinced the taste is that different but there must be something to it at the same time.

Anyway, he also said Kerry mountain lamb has a more game-like taste and mountain lambs from Mayo/Connemara have a salty flavour.

They’re good stories to sell but is there a little truth or a lot of truth to them?

The chefs would know best, they don't usually have skin in the game. It's as easy for them to sell one story as another so makes sense to sell the best.

ganmo

toleratethis wrote: »

The chefs would know best, they don't usually have skin in the game. It's as easy for them to sell one story as another so makes sense to sell the best.

I never thought of it like that.

What makes sense for me is that the mountain lamb is older when killed. Previous studies have shown that organic chicken vs normal chicken of the same age they tasted the same.

Siamsa Sessions

ganmo wrote: »

I never thought of it like that.

I guess the chef is the customer and he makes the decision to buy or not to buy your lamb. If he thinks it tastes better, then he'll buy it. After that, the person eating the dish in the restaurant might or might not know the difference.

davidk1394

I doubt many mountain lambs are finished just off grass and heather ? The majority are finished in sheds off meal arent they

ganmo

davidk1394 wrote: »

I doubt many mountain lambs are finished just off grass and heather ? The majority are finished in sheds off meal arent they

i'd say most of them are outside getting meal rather than in sheds

Siamsa Sessions

ganmo wrote: »

i'd say most of them are outside getting meal rather than in sheds

Wherever they're being fed, they need it anyway.

Had a few aged hill ewes this year and most of their single lambs were OK, but a few had twins. I took the 2nd lamb off any that had twins and fed them as pets. They got no meal after being weaned as there wasn't enough of them to be bothered with feeding. I just left them drift on.

Sold them this week as 35kg stores, having been born in late-March. They cost me nothing really so can't complain. They were on good grass, rather than heather, but they'd need a fair whack of meal to turn them into finished lambs. And I can only guess that would dilute the apparent flavour of heather off them.

The more I think about it and read the comments on here, the less I think of the idea that you can taste heather off mountain lambs. Might be a bit more though to the non-pushed, slow-maturing lamb whose meat might be more tender.

MayoAreMagic

davidk1394 wrote: »

I doubt many mountain lambs are finished just off grass and heather ? The majority are finished in sheds off meal arent they

Some would be but not a huge percentage. If they were made wethers then more would be finished off grass.
The ones who do get finished off meal have generally spent 90% of their lives away from it so id say it still would have an effect.
Personally, Id look for lamb that is beside the sea on upland ground. I find them tastier but that is just a personal preference.
Lamb can be kind of bit and miss sometimes in general. You hear of people saying lambs from x or y are not nice. But then others swear by the same ones. I think the reality is sometimes you can get a better one than others across the board.

Large bottle small glass

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Interesting discussion. Seems there’s something to hill lambs if they’re actually fed on the mountain and something to older lambs if they’re not pushed with too much meal.

Apart for eating it yourself or selling it to a chef/restaurant who can taste the difference, it probably doesn’t matter to most consumers who will look at the price of it more than its provenance

I buy a Comeragh or two every year from neighbour.

I eat in all, liver, sweetbreads, neck, shoulder etc.

All the cheap cuts, stewed or braised in ove

I used to occasionally buy some lowland lamb from my otherwise excellent butcher but it is just so bland in comparison.

Salt and slow cooking is all is required with mountain lamb.