Stand out from the flock this Easter lose the lamb

Hannah Twiggs on the flavoursome but unfashionable meat that farmers say we should be eating this Sunday hogget

- Hannah Twiggs

Spring lamb has become a culinary cliche: soft, sweet and symbolically tied to Easter. But the meat that turns up on most British tables this weekend is rarely what it claims to be. The lambs born in spring are still wobbling through wet fields. The ones being eaten? Born in winter, fattened fast on grain or flown in from the other side of the world. It’s called “new season lamb,” but it’s out of sync with the actual season – and often, with flavour too.

The truth is, you’ve probably never eaten true spring lamb at Easter. What’s typically sold as “new season lamb” is often nothing of the sort. Lambs born in January or even December are rushed through on grain and silage to meet seasonal demand, despite poor weather, limited grass and high stress for both animal and farmer.

The result is meat that is undeniably tender – but often lacking in flavour and commanding a price that’s more about tradition than taste.

“Easter… a celebration… courting birds, warmer rays, harder ground. And then we go and spoil it all by eating spring lamb,” says Herefordshire farmer Tom Jones, who supplies native meat to leading restaurants and recently launched a campaign to bring hogget into the Easter spotlight (supported by chefs Ravneet Gill, Ben Lippett and Hannah Mai, among others). “Tender, but tasteless.”

And so, a culinary sleight of hand: the real seasonal meat, bursting with the flavour of last summer’s pasture, is not lamb at all, but hogget – a sheep aged between one and two years old. It’s the meat we used to eat before supermarkets got squeamish, and the meat a growing number of farmers, butchers and chefs are now urging us to rediscover.