The Prince of Wales (l) surveys lunch with Andrew Elliot at Blackhaugh Farm sheep farm at Clovenfords, Scottish Borders. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA
Just days after scientists warned us to ease off red meat, Prince Charles says we should be eating more mutton.
Today he launched the Mutton Renaissance Club at a black tie bash at the Ritz, and on the menu was, yes, an array of mutton dishes.
"Yuck," most people would say. Mutton's reputation hovers only marginally above horse flesh. It is considered a tough, bland meat associated with the austerity of the 1940s. Its inferior status, sealed by the phrase "mutton dressed up as lamb", is grossly unfair according to members of the new club. The National Sheep Association moans that many New-Zealand-lamb-reared youths have never tasted mutton, and yet still regard it with disdain.
They don't know what they are missing, says the prince. On a visit to a school earlier this week, he said it was his favourite food. "When I was your age I lived off mutton," he said.
Celebrity chefs have also been queuing up to sing its praises. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says there is "something rather special" about mutton and claims that it can even be served rare. HFW and Jamie Oliver joined the prince and various meat trade bigwigs at today's launch.
Is this anymore than a campaign to flog a lot of unwanted dead sheep? Or are they on to something?
