Baby Lamb

I was shopping at Peters Meats the other day, the butcher right outside our Woolies. Not to get off the topic, but I really enjoy shopping here. Woolies has everything you need, but the grocery stores in malls are usually flanked by butchers, bakers, candlestick makers...along with chicken, cheese, specialty delis and pastry shops. One of my dream days would be to browse around all the specialty ships and hand pick my groceries ( what can I say, I'm easy to please). Whereas my typical shopping trips usually resemble something closer to say, an episode of Supermarket Sweep. But, back to the butcher... While deciding if we were going to have t-Bone steaks or fillets (which rhyme with "millets" here), my eyes caught a plate of little round lumps of meat, tied up with rosemary labeled, "Baby Lamb Rumps". I was amused. I mean, really, is it necessary to make people feel any worse for eating lamb? For God's sake, lamb = baby, right? Well, as far as lamb is concerned, there is apparently a whole hierarchy of baby-ness. After doing some research I found out that standard Lamb is anything less than a year old, usually around eight months. Then you have Spring Lamb, which is slaughtered at five months. Baby Lamb is just four to six weeks old when it meets its maker. And just when I thought that was as sad as it gets, I discovered that Hothouse Lamb is slaughtered at two to four weeks old, after being raised entirely on mother's milk.

Just writing that is depressing.

I read FastFood Nation in 2001. Or maybe it was 2002. I bought it in an airport during a business trip, and I had a hard time putting it down. After reading it I went on a serious organic beef and chicken kick for about two years. I remember visiting Don's uncle in Oregon that Summer and he told us stories about cows going to auction and the farmers putting cement in the feed to weigh them down. I stayed the path, but after a few years I slipped and started buying chicken sandwiches at Carls Jr, then a burger at Mortons, and then it all went to Hell. Eating out certainly became easier, and my pocketbook appreciated the savings. In fact, I never really thought much about meat at all until last week. I really have no idea what bothered me so much about the lamb. To be perfectly honest, I don't even really like lamb (Which is almost blasphemous to admit here). Maybe because buying meat is usually so removed. You order a pound of something and there it is. And seeing this really made me envision where the lamb came from. I mean, I love a good steak as much as any other self proclaimed carnivore. But at six weeks, shouldn't a lamb be kicking it's heels up in the pasture and nibbling on dandelions? I know this post is all over the place. It's been a long week....and it's only Tuesday.