Baa Baa Black Sheep

Lamb all morning. First, there was rack of lamb to trim: a very detailed job that can be either monotonous or relaxing. Today, it was the latter, very precise, not too messy, easy to see what progress you've made. Chef had received four "frenched" racks as a bonus from his meat purveyor, and he used them to demonstrate to the class how you don't always get what you pay for. At $11.25 wholesale, these racks still needed considerable trimming before the bones were long and clean, as I found out. It's easier to buy them whole and do the knife work all the way through, than to try and fix something that's been done half way, and sloppily, besides.

If you happen to have the February issue of "Gourmet" magazine, check out the ad for Wolf Ranges on pages 2 and 3. The ad includes several pictures of a pork loin roast, bone-in, similar to the lamb racks we were trimming today. The messy bones on the uncooked roast translate to burnt crispiness on the finished product. That's OK maybe for pork that you'll slice and serve on a plate with a knife and fork. But one of the cool things about a lamb loin is that the cut slices are easy to pick up and eat out of hand — like a savory meat lollipop — which is how we ate them this morning. Roberto seasoned and seared two racks, finished them in the oven, then passed around the plate mid-way through our morning production. The excuse was that some of the class had never tasted lamb, but in fact we are all just hungry, all the time, and looking for something to gnaw on.

It's actually no surprise that we had some lamb "virgins," as it were: according to Chef Allen, only 2% of the US population eats lamb, whereas it's the most common meat eaten in all the rest of the world. (I love it when I can confirm the "facts" we're learning: according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, annual consumption of lamb in the US is about 3/4 of a pound per person per year, whereas New Zealanders eat over 50 pounds per person per year.)

Most of the lamb we can purchase in the US is imported from New Zealand and Australia, where the grass-grazed animals are smaller than their grain-fed US counterparts, with the meat being correspondingly more tender and mild. The discussion digressed at length over the definition of "gamy" — Dava, a quasi-vegetarian who'd never tasted lamb or duck before butchery, couldn't understand what Chef was trying to describe. Finally, in frustration, he said, "It's the difference between tasting like nothing and tasting like something!!"

P.S. Apparently Epicurious.com has stolen my idea. Where's my camera crew?