Whenever I go to American restaurants, I see a lot of chicken, beef, pork, fish, and turkey dishes.
But I rarely see lamb or mutton on the menu.
Now if I’m like I need to have a lamb dish, I’ll go to a middle eastern/Mediterranean or Indian/Pakistani restaurant.
But anyways, is lamb not popular among Americans?
46 comments
Not really, no.
Nope
It isn’t. Its generally more expensive.
at least in my area lamb isn’t common at all which confuses me because its bomb af.
i only really see it in like food trucks and indian restaurants which we don’t have many of
Not really. It’s never really been popular with Americans so as time goes on, less and less people grow up eating it. It wasn’t initially raised here, and it’s more expensive than other cuts of meat also, simply because there’s not many growers for it.
yeah lamb and mutton aren’t super common outside of ethnic cuisines where that kind of meat is common. It’s not impossible to find, like I’m pretty sure I can buy lamb at my local grocery store, but it’s definitely not going to always be on the menu at restaurants.
Its expensive.
I also eat alot of Indian food and usually will get lamb as a protein in a dish.
I went to Miami and looked at various menus with lamb and every dish was between 15-30 dollars. That was across various cuisines.
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten lamb. Maybe once or twice at the most, probably at a mediterranean restaurant or something.
Its not really. Although its really good.
You can find it at most butcher shops, usually in their bulk freezer section from external vendors.
Or you’ll have to go to a Halal market.
Pretty much the only lamb I eat is the Lamb Vindaloo dish from Trader Joe’s.
Not super popular. Lamb chops are probably the most common, I’ll make it at home with a mint sauce if I see it at the grocery store and I’m in the mood.
It exists, but it’s a distant fourth behind poultry, beef, and pork.
Also, for whatever reason, it’s almost always referred to as lamb here, not mutton.
Lamb and veal both seem way more prevalent in other countries than here.
I can attribute it to my fondness of a sock puppet when I was a child as to why I don’t eat it that often but it’s quite delicious.
I think a lot of Americans are a little squeamish about eating baby animals. Logically, raising animals to adulthood in cramped, unhappy conditions the way a lot of meat is raised isn’t better, but people still have more feelings about the babies.
You will find lamb at higher end Italian restaurants and steak houses but overall it isn’t too popular
I don’t dislike lamb but it’s never offered at factory farm prices
Not really. Some steak houses have rack of lamb.
> Now if I’m like I need to have a lamb dish, I’ll go to a middle eastern/Mediterranean or Indian/Pakistani restaurant.
Those are pretty much the only places I have seen lamb being regularly served. Places such as New York also have halal carts which may include lamb items. But otherwise, lamb is not popular or commonly available in the US, even in supermarkets.
Nah, it’s not popular here.
It’s a combination of it not being part of the broader American cuisine and the fact that the number of sheep people raise *pales* in comparison to cattle, pigs, or poultry. This drives up the price and leads to the only people seeking it out outside of ethnic restaurants being immigrants from cultures where it’s more popular.
I would have never eaten lamb had it not been for my British son-in-law. It is definitely not a popular item in our restaurants, but still available in certain areas.
Sadly no, it’s not very popular. Aside from the ethnic foods you mentioned, mutton is popular for barbecue in western Kentucky.
No. Personally, I used to get weirded out by lamb. Used to think it was nasty to eat, like horse or dog. Love it now.
Not that popular. Rather common at middle eastern or south Asian restaurants or higher end “New American” restaurants and generally available at grocery stores though. In my experience it isn’t hard to find, but won’t be an standard option like beef, pork, or chicken.
It’s uncommon. I’ve tried it before and don’t really see the point. I didn’t dislike it, but it’s expensive and not especially tasty or anything. I’d rather just have a steak, especially for the cost.
No it’s not. It’s more expensive.
Nope. Sheep here were primarily reared for wool, with the meat being a byproduct. Wool market dwindled to near irrelevance post WW2 and most sheep farms converted to Dairy ones or cattle ranches. now sheep meat is one of the upper end meats.
There is a major dearth of lamb and goat in the US and it is sad.
Sadly it isn’t. It’s delicious.
It is expensive though and not nearly as available as other meats.
Not nearly as popular as beef and pork, no.
You can find it at asian food markets, or some grocery stores. Recently I have only seen it as part of a “meatloaf mix” that contains beef, pork, and lamb – I actually buy it once a month since it makes a less dense and more juicy meatloaf than beef alone.
Other than that I have only eaten lamb in Indian food restaurants, and in Greek gyros (although most places around me serve beef gyros, you gotta look for the lamb ones).
It seems strange until you try some of the lamb served here. It’s an expensive meat here, and so a lot of places that serve it either serve crummy meat or don’t prepare it well. Maybe it would be more common if it was better quality/prepared correctly, but I think a lot of people have bad lamb or mutton a few times and sorta swear it off entirely.
In Chicago you can get lamb at Italian, Greek, Middle Eastern, and Indian restaurants or at specialty butcher shops. Around Holy Week lamb becomes more widely available in grocery stores, but the rest of the year it may be hard to find.
It’s not as popular no, but you can find it in every state at a farmers market or local ethnic grocery store (Hispanic and Caribbean stores usually have it). Even most nationwide grocery stores (Walmart, Target, etc.) will carry it.
No. Our agriculture is not garnered towards it for cost reasons. We’ve never raised lamb on a large margin and never will, because it’s not economically viable or efficient.
It’s common in my immediate area due to an established Syrian and Greek population. They opened restaurants in the county seat which popularized lamb among the masses, so now it’s available in stores cheaper than places just outside the county. You can’t have a backyard cookout without lamb kebabs and toum here.
Everywhere else, no. It lost out to beef and pork over the years for a multitude of reasons that make it more expensive to raise here.
I love lamb, its really expensive compared to beef/pork/chicken/fish/turkey though.
Its not
I’m not a big fan of it, my favorite restaurant, a Brazilian steakhouse, serves it and I did try it. I can’t explain exactly what I didn’t like about it the flavor just wasn’t for me.
We mostly used the grazing land for cows and raised pigs, chicken or turkeys where there wasn’t good pasture. Lamb never took off as livestock here so it’s historically been an import or a more local specialty good and more expensive than beef or pork. As a result it never really took off as an every day staple. You CAN find it, but you have to go looking and cuts are more limited even at butchers and such than you’ll find in many countries.
Mutton and lamb is really expensive here — I’ve only seen it at French and Indian restaurants. Apparently people eat it at Easter though, so I’m hoping to be able to buy some marked down on Monday.
No, it’s not as popular here. More expensive.
My town has a Middle Eastern restaurant with some badass kefta kebabs, though.
Easy to find at the store but I think it tastes pretty bad compared to the other common types of meat. It’s alot more gamey comparatively, I really wanted to like it since if I did I planned on starting to raise lamb myself since it would be so much easier than beef.
They barbecue mutton around here. It’s a local thing and it’s fantastic.
Probably the most famous place is the [moonlite inn](https://www.moonlite.com/).
Pretty rare. I know I’ll have some next week for Easter with mint jelly, but I think relatively few people in Alabama will, it seems to align with particular ethnic/denominational Christians to have that as a traditional meal.
I was on a college trip to Greece, and it was me (recent Anglican/Episcopal ancestry) and the Greek Orthodox students who did lamb for Easter/Pascha.
i like to kiss lambs on their cute little noses
Not particularly. There are about 95 million calves & cattle in the U.S., which is down a bit. There’s only about 5 million sheep. The slaughter numbers are 33 million to 2.4 million, and cattle have a *lot* more meat.
http://www.sheep101.info/farm.html
I mean I consider Americans of color just regular Americans 😂😂😂 so it’s def popular enough in our communities.
I ate lamb every once and while growing up- whenever my dad felt like eating it he’s just buy it from the regular grocery store (normally chops, sometimes a whole shank would come home for grilling) so I didn’t think it was particularly unusual until I got older… I figured it was something like salmon- too expensive to eat TOO often