I decided this confession should be a rant because I bought about 8 pieces of baklava at Walmart and ate most of them. I love baklava and have concluded that while Greek and middle eastern people eat far too much mutton, they have created a truly delicious dessert. It's almost worth eating mutton (yuuuuk) just to get to dessert. I think they have decided to undermine the progress of humanity by forcing us to eat baklava which puts us in such a pleased state that we don't want to conquer the world. We just want more baklava. I could say the same thing about rugalach which is Jewish. It's delicious beyond reason. I think we should have a middle eastern standoff between the best baklava bakers versus the best rugalach bakers. Whoever wins gets the middle east. I want to be a judge. What about you?

I have to admit, I have never had rugalach....but baklava...oh my!!!! My Aunt married into a Greek family, and they make baklava for all occasions! If I lived next door to them I would have been twice the size I was when I had surgery!!!

I saw that in Walmart---I made myself drive on by...now I want it again!!!!

Tell me about the rugalach.....tempt me with more food porn!!!

Kat

My sister is married to a Greek boy, my other sister is married to an Italian.

But we've never eaten mutton - boy oh boy does he do some wonderful things with lamb though, I love love love lamb.

:hungry: hmmm stop it you guys you are making me HUNGRY!

Becky

My sister is married to a Greek boy, my other sister is married to an Italian.

But we've never eaten mutton - boy oh boy does he do some wonderful things with lamb though, I love love love lamb.

You're joking, right?

They're technically different. Lamb comes from younger creatures, mutton from older. Veal vs. beef. (granted dairy, and male, etc.)

My maternal grandfather was from Greece. My mother and I make a big pan of baklava for each holiday. It takes forever to make it from scratch, but it's sooooo worth it.

And we always have lamb to accompany our traditional holiday fares. For tday we did the rotisserie leg, marinated in Greek seasoning and basted with basil lemon butter. For the 25th we will do souvlaki.

We don't however, do the lamb head tradition.

Hey Kat..........Food Porn? Geez I love it! Actually I may have starred in a couple of those video's! Yikes!

food PORN? stop, your killing me.......:roll: :roll:

I love that term....I think its gonna be my new word for the day.

I do believe our SO's will all be wondering what all the porn talk on LBT is about!!! Let 'em wonder---just keep 'em away from the baklava!!!!

Kat

Not joking Carlene, lamb is common here - isnt it there? A leg of lamb is our traditional "celebration" meal there's even used to be an ad on telly with a very young Naomi Watts being invited out for dinner by Tom Cruise (on the other end of the phone, he wasnt actually in the ad) and she says "not tonight, Mum's doing a lamb roast".

Mmm, roast lamb, lamb loin chops, lamb back straps, lamb cutlets, those are all commonplace in Oz. Its really the only red meat I really like, I might have a bit of corned silverside or something, but generally beef doesnt do it for me at all - not a steak eater.

Mutton is from an older animal, I've never eaten it - actually I've never even seen it in the butchers.

Lamb is not a national staple here, beef is ours. Where my husband is from it's moose, and beef is not so common and pretty expensive, so it's still weird for him to see the rows upon rows of beef at the grocery store.

Lamb here is a lot pricier than other places. I pay an average of about $45 for a decent leg of lamb. That makes probably 4 lbs of ground lamb, and 4 lbs of ground sirloin or chuck is half that at most.

And yeah, I'm guessing on the prices, I really don't pay a whole lot of attention. I'm bad, I know.

I guess Australia is "built on the sheeps back", sheep are everywhere here.

Where I am at in New Mexico, mutton is common place. IMHO--it is some nasty s#*t!!!! It is the main meat staple among the Navajo Indians, and we border with the reservation. They eat it mainly in mutton stew. It reeks when it cooks, smells like old lard in my opinion!

The local Albertsons Grocery, my friend is a meat cutter there, and every 3 days they get fresh mutton in, and I do mean fresh, the carcas is still steaming when they roll it into the meat locker, and the packages steam when they wrap them! But it is in HIGH demand by the Native Americans.

They fry it, and wrap it in Fry bread...it is ground, used in all manners.

Personally they can have my share---tried it a couple of times, and neither time could I get past the smell.

Now my DD's boyfriend just shot an Oryx...and I ate some of it, and it wasn't bad.

However, in keeping with the thread----I'll take the baklava anyday and y'all can have all the lamb and mutton, and oryx etc!!!!

Kat

What in the hell is an "oryx"??????

In my state's early days (not that long ago....late 1800's...the most common wars were between two kinds of people....cattle ranchers and sheep ranchers. They may have looked alike and spoke the same language but there was 'bad blood' between them. In fact, the sheep/cattle controversy is the thing that promoted the invention of the barbed wire (or as we pronouce it ..."bob war".) The cattlemen won, and most people in these parts have never eaten lamb (however, they would have agreed that the only good sheep is a dead sheep.) However, there are herds of sheep now living peaceably in west Texas because there is a market for the meat with the influx of Hispanics and MidEastern populations descending upon us in recent years.

I have tasted lamb a time or two....not being raised on it, it just tastes to me like 'good beef gone bad.' Our taste buds are such products of our childhoods.......

But now back to baklava......true food porn....I love that!!!

OK Jimboss---it is nowhere near as good as baklava, but I'll tell ya what an oryx is!!!

It is an African (I believe) antelope. Many years ago, for some reason they began transplanting them into White Sands Missile Base, in White Sands New Mexico. Not huge herds, but apparently enough, and they over produced!!! They are a big animal, hooved, they have 2 long horns on the top of their head (like they would be anywhere else???), that grow straight up. The one my DD's boyfriend shot had 38 1/2 inch long horns. My BIL shot one 2 years ago, and it's horns were over 30". They are brown with white and black markings, I understand the width of the black strip down the middle of the head, indicated male/female. Both of the species grow horns. They are I would say between a large White Tail Deer, and an Elk in size, possibly bigger...never seen one outside of captivity or in the pics where it was already shot. The only way to get to hunt them is to put in to a draw, and draw out the once in a lifetime tag, to be taken onto the WSMR and hunt, with a guide. It is not cheap, the hunt is $3000.00. It is costing him over $3000.00 to have the head mounted as well, and will take about 18 months to complete---there is such a huge hunter following. Anyway, the meat is mild tasting, not real gamey. I would imagine it is because they are not run in a hunt....since it is a guided hunt.

All that being said for the oryx....it will NEVER taste as good as baklava!!! But Jimboss--you get the oryx to eat, and I'll have your share of the baklava!!

Kat