I may be the odd duck in the flock but I like a 'lamby' taste.
When I was a kid we had lamb fairly often and I loved it. But that was many years ago. My guess is it was American lamb since it was fresh and few foods were shipped in from abroad (we only had many veggies and fruits during the season for example).
Then for a number of years had lamb rarely. Not by personal choice but for circumstantial reasons.
When we got married and started buying lamb again we were disappointed, it just didn't taste right. It lacked the taste of the delightful lamb we remembered.
And so we sort of abandoned it as regular fare.
Recently we were in London (yippee!!!) and the first night found lamb on the menu at the local pub. Actually it looks like a pub and is one, but it has a restaurant area with a menu that sports some dishes that exceed the obligatory 'pub grub' (not that we mind that stuff at all).
We both had the lamb. ambrosia. Done to perfection (very pink on the inside) served with a lamb sauce. And a taste that brought back all of the flavors of our childhoods.
Unfortunately it was accompanied by the obligatory mash (no cream or butter therein) and boiled veggies, sigh. A bit, just an iota, of creativity with the sides, would have been a blessing. We did not expect stuffed baby zucchinii, but just tossing some aging pole beans and baby carrots into boiling water for a few minutes and serving them just plain naked should be considered a capital offense. Maybe a few cook's heads removed in the Tower would brake that crime against side dishes, but I doubt it. The Brits seem wedded to the stuff.
Sorry, I became distracted.
To the point, we loved the lamb so much we had it three times in little over a week (fancy restaurants be darned, that was good lamb).
Of course the veggies remained forever as boring as watching your favoirte baseball team, thirty-nine games out of first place, playing their last game of the season, but we were there for the lamb.
My point, and I guess I have to have one, is that I have come to the realization that we like a 'lamby' or I suppose 'gamey' taste to our lamb.
Just wish we knew where to get some here.
Purchased some lamb a week ago, it was called a steak. Can only think it was taken from the sirloin from the size and structure of the meat. But that is not important.
We cooked it medium rare. And it tasted nondescript. You could tell it was meat, but there was no flavor. An old piece of cow would have had more to tingle the taste buds. Yeesh.
So I, nay we, love lamb. But we like the taste, which I suppose the lamb raising folks are desperately trying to extinguish from the breed so more folks will eat the stuff.
Phooey, lamb shold be what it is.
Take the lambiness (no that is not a word) out of the meat and you are left with, well, nothing in my opinion. A piece of generic meat that has about as much flavor as melba toast.
Give us a good piece of lamb, or lacking that, a leg from your mama. We might be able to take a full mutton, or maybe not.
But would be willing to do a full mutton experience.
Take the fundamental flavor from lamb and I belive you are destroying one of the truly enjoyable meat tastes one can experience.
Just my take on things.
Take care and God bless.