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mutton (but rarely if ever eaten) Mutton has been a normal food in many times and places. It happens to be out of fashion in most of the English-speaking world
by celoyd 15y ago
mutton (but rarely if ever eaten)
Mutton has been a normal food in many times and places. It happens to be out of fashion in most of the English-speaking world right now.
I grew up around sheep and often ate mutton as a child. To me, calling young mutton “lamb” has unpleasant connotations. It would be like calling the meat of a relatively young pig “piglet”, or the meat of a relatively young chicken “chick”.
- redcap 15y agoIn Australia, there's a much bigger market for lamb (meat) than there is for mutton. The reason for this is that mutton is supposed to smell a bit funny, and lamb doesn't. In any case, you can get some really tasty lamb dishes down under (e.g. my Mum's slow roasted lamb shanks).
- prodigal_erik 15y agoIn India (and apparently some other areas of Asia), meat from sheep is available but not well liked, so "mutton" generally means meat from goats.
- GeneralMaximus 15y agoIndeed. I had some tasty mutton with rice a few hours ago, and I can confirm it was goat meat. burp
- code_duck 15y ago> It would be like calling the meat of a relatively young pig “piglet”, or the meat of a relatively young chicken “chick”. You mean, it would be like calling something what it is, rather than using a euphemism to shield yourself from what you're doing?
- absentbird 15y agoThat is what was said. Yes.
- celoyd 15y agoClose but not exactly. In farming contexts, piglets and chicks are often distinguished from pigs and chickens precisely because they’re too young to eat. So “young pig” really does mean something different from “piglet” in this case, in the way that in many contexts “young man” clearly means something older than “boy” does. Regardless of your opinion on eating meat, I don’t think this is a failure of euphemism so much as an accidental dysphemism.