Lamb

Lamb sometimes is on the menu in restaurants that serve steaks and chops as well as those that specialize in Middle Eastern cuisine. One place in the U.S. where it’s the meat that rules is western Kentucky. Here, it is billed as mutton (technically, from an older sheep) and it slowly is smoke-cooked to a point of fallapart tenderness. It is big-flavored BBQ, very different from the aristocratic, smoke-laced pork that is more typically southern. Restaurants in Owensboro, Kentucky, offer mutton chopped, sliced, and as ribs; but by the time you travel west twenty-five miles to Henderson, another presentation appears on menus: chipped. Chipped is like chopped, but extreme, yielding a fine hash that is moist and mellow. Chipped mutton is generally offered already sauced, but no one in this region calls it sauce. It is known as dip, and it is the consistency of natural gravy. Mutton served without any sauce is labeled “off the pit.” A chipped tray includes meat, pickle, onion and bread, a chipped platter adds barbecue beans and cole slaw. Or you can have a chipped sandwich, which is always offered on white or rye, the latter resembling Wonder Bread with a tan.