Sheep and mutton: most ancient provider with culture in different nations

Sheep and mutton: most ancient provider with culture in different nations

Food is something that people need every day but now people only can see the food not the ingredient. American people pay a lot of attentions to the energy and the convenience to the food but I pay more attentions to the taste. Sometimes, I chose to go to Jason’s Thai, the nearest Chinese restaurant which is almost located beside the DU campus so my friends and I often go or order something for meals. There is also some American food or Japanese food like Sushi, but we just go for the traditional Chinese food there. One of my favorite dishes is the mutton pot. There is delicious Chinese vermicelli inside and also the mutton in small pieces. A mutton pot with some rice can always make me satisfied after the work whole day but it reminds me of my hometown as well.

As we know, mutton is the meat come from the sheep. It is one of the most common meats in people’s daily lives. Mostly, this meat is from the sheep older that one year but nowadays over two years. The sheep are its most ancient provider of meat to human beings. In the United States, most sheep are eaten as lamb which means the small sheep which are younger than one year old. “In the United States, most lamb is grain fed, which gives it a milder flavor.” Because the requirement of the meat market is really large today and the wild lambs cannot satisfy people’s requirement: if hunting too much wild animals, it will lead the species to become extinguished which may destroy the balance of species and food chain. We don’t want any species go die out so the price of wild animals is getting higher and most people eat the grain-fed animals just like the sheep. There lambs are always between 70 and 100 pounds. “Mutton, the meat of mature sheep, is more popular in Britain and Europe than in the United States.”  I found that mutton is also popular in China and there are several kinds of famous mutton soup and mutton shashlik in China. Just like the one in my hometown, Suzhou. There is a small town called Cangshu which is famous for the mutton. We have mutton festival in that town in winter and attract a lot of people’s attention and taste.

About 11,000 years ago or even earlier, the sheep were tamed by the nomadic people in the Middle East and Asia people. As people in different parts of the world got to know each other, people bring sheep to the countries all over the world, just like moving to the Europe and then were brought to the American. Sheep also appeared in the early European religious and mythological writing and history. “In Ancient Egypt, the ram was the symbol of several gods. In Greek mythology Jason pursued the Golden Fleece. The Abraham of the Bible and Torah sacrificed a ram instead of his son.” This is like an evidence of the culture and history of sheep in Europe which is relative to the religious and mythological and can stand for the special meaning in people in mind in the ancient years. This is a symbol of the early understanding and relationship of human beings and sheep. Furthermore, there is also some culture in early history in China. People know that they are twelve animals in Chinese culture means the Chinese zodiac. Moreover, there were some ancient Chinese bronze ware are designed with the shape of Sheep’s head before more than 3,000 years ago. These examples can both mean the sheep has significant meanings and influences to the Chinese people.

The sheep and lambs production is all over the United States and seasonal. “This is mostly due to the fact that lambs exhibit seasonal estrus, meaning that most breeds only breed during one time of the year, which is usually in the fall during the long days.” The older sheep can breed in the fall so they are only a period of time that comes up a lot of sheep babies. However, this characteristic will lead to be only one kind of sheep in a year. As to get a good breed of sheep, they need to select the good breed from a several kinds and take some experiment to get the advantages or disadvantages to get the best one which can produce the most meat with high efficiency. Usually, sheep are in the farmlands and have the machine with technology to produce meat in a long process, they have long steps and every machine has its own job like cutting the wools and bleeding.

Mutton is very healthy and has a lot of nutrition which can help people feel warm in the cold days. It is beneficial to people’s Spleen and kidney and can help the lying-in woman. However, there is a strange smell and state of the mutton which stops a lot of people from eating or even trying then. Overall, mutton is a good source of meat eater which is better and healthier than pork and beef I think, especially in the winter days.