One of my favourite meats, salt marsh lamb, comes into season around
June or July and is available throughout summer and autumn. My butcher
sources his lamb from North Wales and it's succulently tender, with the
most incredible flavour.
Lambs have grazed on the salt marshes of
North Wales for years, but in the UK it's only fairly recently that
their meat has been treated as a speciality. In France, on the other
hand, this unique lamb (l'agneau pré-salé) is a highly prized terroir
delicacy and the French just can't get enough of it. In fact it's so
highly thought of that pré-salé lamb from the Baie de Somme has received
a coveted French AOC label, which officially establishes strict
conditions and rules that producers are obliged to follow.
What
makes it so outstanding and special? It's the distinctive flavour and
meltingly tender texture, which make it significantly different from
mountain lamb. The juicy meat is also darker than mountain-reared lamb,
has less fat and, of course, is fully traceable.
The
lambs are born between March and April and live first of all on their
mother's milk, then after four to six weeks, grass is added to their
diet. They graze on the estuary salt marshes and coastal pastures that
are flooded by the spring tides and doused by the sea. The lambs feed on
a rich variety of plants and minerals growing in the salt marshes,
which give the meat a superb flavour. Surprisingly it doesn't taste at
all salty or of seaweed as you might expect; instead the richly
flavoured meat has gentle hints of the coastal flora and fauna, such as
glasswort, sea purslane, samphire and sea lavender.
The
high salt levels and iodine-rich content of these plants and grasses
also make the muscle cells in the flesh retain more moisture and so the
meat is juicier and 'melt-in-the-mouth' tender. The added benefit of the
sea-washed pastures is that the salty water kills a large number of
bacteria that can be harmful to sheep and so the need to treat the
animals with chemicals is considerably reduced.
I'm intrigued by
the fact that the 'leaders' of the flock can sense when the tide is
coming in and lead the flock in a long line up the estuary to the higher
ground, then when the tide goes out, the flock returns to the marshes! A
leg of salt marsh lamb is delicious roasted - it requires just a
seasoning of salt and pepper to bring out its unique flavour. The Welsh
often serve it with laverbread too.
Source: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/salt-marsh-lamb
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