Not a Step Too Far

It is an early Easter this year, making the idea of eating ‘spring’ or ‘new season’s’ lamb even more ridiculous than usual. Even if Easter were to fall on 25 April (the last available date that it can, and which last happened in 1943 and will next happen in 2038), the so-called new season’s lamb would still have been born in a barn in January and not seen a blade of grass before it came to the table. As it stands, there is unlikely even to be a pretence of offering spring lamb. What is on offer is a mix of not-so-young lamb and hogget. Of course, nothing is wrong with hogget: it has a pronounced flavour and would, at least, come close to conforming to the scriptural advice that the paschal lamb be ‘either a lamb or goat, necessarily a male, one year old, and without blemish’. However, this year I thought I might take a contrary path and, instead of using mutton dressed as lamb would adopt mutton dressed as itself.