All about: Salt Marsh Lamb

1st August 2019

 

 

Rare breed and specialist meats are rising in popularity as consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of the origins of their food, and more interested in unique and quirky flavours. Thanks to praise from celebrity chefs and independent butchers, like ourselves, stocking the lamb as a specialty each season, it is more well known in the UK.     

Here’s a few interesting facts about the regional delicacy:

  • The French are famous for it but we are just cottoning on to it. The area around the  Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy and the Bay of the Somme in Picard are renowned for Salt Meadow Lamb (Agneau de pré-salé) where it has been a delicacy for centuries and currently has protected designation of origin status in France – a bit like what our Traditional Cumberland Sausage has within the EU.
  • Salt Marsh Lamb Season runs from July – October
  • Our Salt Marsh Lamb is Cumbrian; it grazes on a five mile stretch of marshlands on the Solway Firth Estuary, which is one of a few places around the UK where sheep are reared in this way. Other places include: Morecambe Bay, Somerset Levels and the Gower Peninsula in Wales.
  • We have worked with the same farm at Anthorn, on the Cumbrian Coast, for around a decade to provide high quality Salt Marsh Lamb for our four food halls in North Cumbria
  • It has a distinctive flavour, which is down to the land it grazes on. The marsh land is frequently washed by the sea, feeding the plant life and fauna. The Lambs’ diet consists of wild coastal plants such as grasswort and sea lavender.
  • Despite the assumption Salt Marsh Lamb is particularly salty, it’s actually rather sweet in flavour with a delicate texture.
  • Grazing on coastal terrain like that of the Solway, is pretty tough going for the lambs but this helps produce flavoursome and  melt in the mouth meat.

The best way to cook it? Philip Cranston enjoys the shoulder or leg simply roasted, sometimes studded with garlic and anchovies!

Anthorn Salt Marsh Lamb is now available at our food halls in Penrith, Carlisle, Brampton and at Orton Grange, and to order from our high street butchers in Penrith & Hexham. A half Salt Marsh Lamb box online here, for £95 plus free delivery