Easter lamb

[purpleheartsandroses]

Why is lamb the go to meat for Easter?

Let's celebrate the new life of spring....by eating it???

I love lamb, it's my favourite meat. But wouldn't mutton be more appropriate? Or chicken so we can celebrate the new life hatching from the eggs?

AIBU to think we should be eating the "old" meat, so we can celebrate the arrival of new life?

Again, here, right all around me, we lamb from the end of November for the Easter demand

I firmly agree.

For Christians Jesus is the fruition of the Jewish Passover The Easter Triduum begins with the last supper, Jesus celebrating the Passover with his disciples. As the Jews ate lamb at the Passover, many Christians followed the tradition. The date of Easter is still dependent on the date of the Jewish Passover.

Ah I did love lamb when I ate meat. That’s one of the things I slightly miss. Also mint sauce.

My very kind brother and SIL made me a lovely non-meat equivalent of their lunch today - which wasn’t lamb anyway!

It’s linked to the Passover tradition. A lamb was sacrificed by Israelites to mark their homes with blood and save them from the tenth plague. As with most of Christianity, it’s inspired by another older religion.

Thank you for this. I will admit I know very little of farming logistics. I doubt many in London do.

No. Plenty of indoor lambing in the UK in Nov/Dec for lambs that are ready for Easter.

Usually large continental breeds. More likely to be raised on a smaller scale and more expensive/intensive than spring lambing outside. But absolutely happening and providing lamb outside of the traditional British lamb season in Autumn.

It's not the system on my farm where we are currently knee deep in outside lambing - we have the traditional 'harvest of the hills' in the Autumn but it's a system I'm very familiar with.

I think it is abhorrent.
Seeing those babies in the fields breaks my heart.

Why?

Frolicking lambs bouncing round the fields chasing each other in the sunshine is one of the happiest things to watch. I love it and happy lambs make the absolute bone ache of lambing time worth it.

But by the time they are ready to be eaten they are great big bulky, sweaty, woolly bullying teenagers. Not cute little lambs anymore. The average townie would probably identify a 6 month old lamb as a sheep rather than a lamb.

Because I think eating babies is abhorrent, no matter how big they are. People coo at the lambs and then eat them a few months later. It's sickening.

Most animals are slaughtered when they are still babies. Their natural life spans are much longer.
Imo it’s a weird tradition to eat any of them, but agree more so at Easter when we are “celebrating new life”.

The easter connection to lamb comes from the jewish connection to lamb as part of the celebration of the Passover which happens at the same time of year (according to the bible Christ's death and resurrection happened at Passover time.

Exodus 12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire — with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.
12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord — a lasting ordinance.

The Passover was celebrated with the eating of lamb, known as the Paschal Lamb in the same way from that first time with Moses until the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in CE70. After the destruction of the temple Lamb was not included in the passover meal as it could not be slaughtered properly at the Temple. However in Christian tradition, Jesus as God sacrificing himself to himself to become a perfect final sacrifice ended all need for further sacrificial and created a new covenant of forgiveness and love wherein Jesus embodied an act of reunificatiom between God and Mankind that was so much more infinitely powerful than an animal sacrifice that it never needs to be repeated, and Jesus in that way is referred to as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

In Christian tradition for many centuries one didn't eat (mammal) meat or eggs in Lent (the 40 days before Easter) - handily coinciding with the time of year when it's a good idea to let your flocks of sheep and chickens focus on actually raising this year's newborns. So Easter Day is the first time in 7 weeks you're allowed to have a good protieny meal and in any culture where lamb is most readily available I suspect lamb was more about "yay we are allowed meat again" as it is about the spiritual significance of Lamb.

Well there can't be much of it given that it is early spring and lambs arrive in spring in the majority of cases. There can hardly be enough to feed the entire UK population. Poor lambs if they are arriving at the beginning of winter, and presumably have to live inside.

An aside that nobody asked for. We (British/Black Caribbean) tend to eat mutton/sheep in our recipes (my grandparents used it instead of goat meat, which is even harder to source in the UK than mutton). Mutton is readily sold in most Asian/middle eastern butchers. Mutton is perfect for slow cooked stews/curries. I don't mind lamb, but I find it crappy that mutton is not equally sold in supermarkets when mutton can be much tastier and exciting than slow cooked beef.

Most butchers will order goat in for you if you ask, but it's £££. I can't do Curry Goat justice so stick to mutton, but other family members will order it in for special occasions.

Also, tesco does frozen mutton pieces in the halal section. Not as good, but easier to get then trekking into town for the butchers.

are you wise?

Do you know how much of the meat we produce to eat is produced?

Lambs are born and kept with their mums until they are totally weaned. They are out in the fields, with their siblings and mums, eating grass, playing . They have a good life - in all consideration

Now take your chicken, frankenchickens - so totally far from a chick that you think off its a total abomination. By six weeks old their legs have collapsed from under them, they are too heavy. They then sit there in their own faeces until they are collected for slaughter.. Constantly hungry and yet cant make it to the feeders to feed

My own chooks, born and raised with their mums, mums leave them when they are ready and they then get introduced to the flock . 6 months old before we see an egg - unlike commercial which is around 3 months . The only chooks we eat are the roos, and they arent soft meat, gamey, need long slow cooking , bloody tasty though

My flock at the moment are 6 months old, if they had made it to the commercial farms they were destined for, they would be spending their year long life in artificial light laying eggs for a year and then going for pet feed. . My chooks came to me not knowing what the sun was like, now they roam all day, scratching and picking , fresh water and food , a warm house , dust bathing, none of its cheap , land, food, time

A farmer here beside me, gets 5p a chick that hes had in a barn for 6 weeks raising them for food - hence you get 16k plus birds in a hen house

We are not eating this year's new born lambs.

Thanks for that.
Yes, I'm wise enough to know eating animals isn't for me as i find the concept abhorrent.

The lamb of God refers to Jesus and the Passover and its significance is that Jesus was sacrificed to wash away our sins. This is the Christian belief.