MUTTON.
Instructions for choosing it.
Mutton is best from Christmas to Midsummer.
When, if in its prime, (that is about four years of age,) it will feel tender when pinched with the finger and thumb, but if older, it will feel harder and fibrous. The grain of the lean should be a fine deep red, the colour bright, and the fat firm and white. Wether mutton is the best flavoured, and may be known by a prominent lump of fat at the edge of the broadest part. Ewe mutton is paler than wether mutton, is of a finer texture and of less value; ram mutton is strong flavoured, high coloured, and its fat is spungy.
The mutton of the small Welch sheep, which are driven up, and fatted on Banstead Heath, and the mutton bred and fed on the South Downs, in Sussex, are the most esteemed in London. At Bath, the short-shanked Dorsetshire, and the Lansdown mutton are most in request; in Yorkshire and the northern counties, the Moor mutton; and in Norfolk and Suffolk the long-shanked is most approved; but the sheep bred in the Fens and deep lands of Lincolnshire, and that neighbourhood, are large, coarse-grained, and ill-flavoured.—Mutton tastes strong of the coat in May and June, or just before shearing.
The Joints of Mutton.
| 1 Leg | 5 Neck, scrag-end |
| 2 Loin, best end | 6 Shoulder |
| 3 Ditto, chump end | 7 Breast |
| 4 Neck, best end | |
| A Chine is the two loins together; and a Saddle is the two necks together. | |
LAMB.
Instructions for choosing it.