Early this week, we had a Biryani lunch at office. While everyone was enjoying the rare delicacy, one asked what type of meat was in it. The person who prepared the meal said it’s ‘goat meat’. For a moment I thought he might not aware of what ‘goat meat’ is called. But to my astonishment, everyone kept calling it by the same name.
Out of curiosity, I said ‘back home we call it mutton’. Then only I got the answer. Mutton is actually the meat from mature sheep; not from goat. Then where was the confusion? Apparently, the word ‘mutton’ is used to describe goat meat in our part of the world. So, our mutton Biryani and mutton Kottu are not quite what we mean for people outside the region.
sam said,
July 15, 2009 at 11:58 pm
As far as I know.. The young once that we occasionally like to kill and eat call lamb. And their parents that we kill and eat with rice, call mutton.
Goat and Mutton comes from French. Brits were good farmers as they reputed to be, but they are not very good cooks they say. French other hand good cooks but not so good farmers. The story goes, French called cows and goats, beef and mutton that they receive and served in meat format. so the French word came to English language just only for the meat part. But Americans who were adamant about maintaining pure form of English, may have refused to teach French words in English class room, and in America they call Goat meat.
That is my two cents
Jack Point said,
July 16, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Over here meat from sheep is termed lamb.
see also this, why I found on a random search.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_name_is_goat_if_it_is_meat
Bailaman said,
July 23, 2009 at 8:46 am
You’re right. We call goat meat mutton in Lanka. Every where else it’s called Goat.