American Lamb

Tonight I made an easy, delicious lamb dish that I used to make often in New Zealand (see recipe below). It turned out great, except the lamb was, well, different.

Because I try to eat as local as possible, I bought lamb from the U.S. at the grocery store today, even though my eyes wondered over to the New Zealand lamb. There were not as many different cuts to choose from as there are in New Zealand and the chops were huge! The average American lamb weighs about 135 lbs when it is slaughtered, which is considerably larger than lambs in other countries. This results in larger cut-sizes and a higher meat-to-bone ratio. Apparently Americans like their lamb super sized too.

Once everything was cooked and we sat down to eat, I noticed the lamb was extremely tender and rather bland. I barely had to chew and it actually tasted more like beef. There was none of the distinct gamey taste that I remember from my lamb dinners in New Zealand. This is because American lambs are "finished" (fattened) on grain, making the meat more tender and milder in flavor. Apparently Americans enjoy this non-lamb-tasting lamb over natural grass-fed lamb and over 80% of restaurants in the U.S. serve American lamb. Great for the American meat (and the government subsidized grain) industry, bad for lambs and humans.

Sheep are ruminants whose digestive systems are meant to process grass, not grain. Besides, there are numerous health benefits to eating meat from animals that have been grass-fed. According to various research studies, the meat and milk from grass-fed ruminants contains more conjugated lineolic acid (CLA), vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acids, beta-carotene, and vitamin A than the meat and milk from grain-fed animals. CLA and omega-3 fatty acids are good fats with anti-cancer, anti-diabetes, and anti-fat properties.

I prefer the chewy, gamey grass-fed lamb. I like to know that I'm getting my vitamins and that I'm eating something distinct, not some bland, spongy meat product. Besides, I might as well eat chewy meat while I'm young and still have all my teeth!

Coriander Lamb

1 lb diced lamb
1/2 T coriander, crushed and soaked in warm water 10 minutes
1/2 t whole cumin seed
Salt & Pepper
1/4 t cayenne powder

Olive oil
1 medium onion, julienne
3 cloves garlic, chopped

Marinate lamb in spices for up to 2 hours.

Sautee onions and garlic in olive oil until onions are translucent. Add spiced lamb mixture and cook 10-15 minutes, until lamb is cooked through.

Serve over saffron couscous with chopped cilantro.

Shrek

This is an old story but I just can't get enough of this guy!

Shrek is a Merino sheep that managed to evade his farmers for 6 years until he was found in 2004, hiding in a cave in Central Otago on the South Island. Normally, Merino sheep are shorn every year, and after 6 years without a shave, Shrek's wool was incredibly long and thick. He was finally shorn on National Television, his wool weighing over 60 lbs!!!


Shrek is now a national icon. In 2004 he was taken to Parliment in Wellington to meet then-Prime Minister Helen Clark. Two years later Shrek celebrated his 10th birthday by having a shave on an iceberg floating off the coast of Dunedin.

Anyway, I just think this is a hilarious story and the pictures of Shrek after he was found hiding are even funnier!

Road Trip #2

Got your map ready? Our second road trip trip took us from Duendin to Te Anau, up to Milford Sound, back to Te Anau, down to Invercargill, out to Stewart Island and back, and through the Catlins on our way back to Dunedin.

The drive to Lake Te Anau was uninspiring, although we did pass through Gore, country capitol of New Zealand and a trout fisherman's paradise. The small town of Te Anau lies on the edge of of Lake Te Anau and mostly caters to tourists preparing for the famous Milford walking track or those heading up to Milford Sound. We were in the second group, but our first evening was spent taking a trip to the Glow Worm Caves on the edge of the lake. Apparently this extensive cave system (it takes 3 DAYS to travel through) was known to the Maori but it's location was kept secret from the Pakeha (white foreigners) until some guy finally found it in the 1940s after 4 years of searching.

We took a boat across the lake, watched some short videos about the cave, life if the glow worm, and the rare Takahe bird that lives in the mountains near by. Finally it was time to enter the cave! We followed our guide as he pointed out special features of the cave and then loaded into a small boat that took us into the pitch black grotto that was full of glow worms. It was breath-taking! You are not allowed to take photos inside the cave but you can check it out online at http://www.realjourneys.co.nz/main/glowwormcaves/

Lake Te Anau

Ok, I have to mention our accommodations at Te Anau. We booked 2 nights in a cabin at the Lakeview Holiday Park, which sounded luxurious. However, our "cabin" was a corrugated metal box that measured 10 ft x 10 ft for 3 people and their stuff. The bathrooms and cooking facilities were shared with about 50 other people. Now, I don't need a penthouse suite, but I prefer not to sleep in a claustrophobic and cob-webby shipping container. Oh well, I survived.

Our second day in Te Anau took us to Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park. We decided to take a tour bus up to Milford, the tiny town where the boat departed for our day out on the sound. And it was a good thing that we weren't driving! The Milford Sound road is incredibly scenic but is often crowded with tour buses and camper vans this time of year. With our pokey driving and sight-seeing, we would have pissed off some the more aggressive drivers. The road is also very narrow and windy, especially the closer you get to Milford. Because it was raining (Fiordland gets about 250 INCHES of rain a year), hundreds of waterfalls spontaneously cascaded down the sheer mountains that rose up on either side of the road.

Mirror Lakes, on the way to Milford

The boat trip on Milford Sound was windy and wet but it was amazing! Shear mountains, covered in beech forest and moss, drop off into dark water. More waterfalls thundered into the sound, although the high winds caused many of the falls to cascade diagonally. Unfortunately the photogenic Mitre Peak was shrouded in mist so we couldn't get that famous Milford Sound photo. But I did get a postcard! We ended the day with an absolutely delicious dinner at the Redcliff Cafe in Te Anau. I recommend the pork belly!

Milford Sound

The Disappearing Waterfall


Milford Sound (Mitre Peak in the clouds on left)

On day 3, we awoke to rainbows galore and headed south along the Southern Scenic Route on our way to Invercargill-the launch point for Stewart Island. We stopped for a beautiful walk near the Borland Lodge in Fiordland National Park. The walk took us through mossy beech forest and has become one of my favorite walks to date! We continued on the Scenic Route, passing through rolling green sheep pastures and tiny dot-on-the-map towns. We stopped to investigate the Clifton Caves, but without the advised 2 hours to explore and extra torches (flashlights), we instead promised to go back in the future. In Riverton, we visited some arts and crafts galleries with beautiful wood bowls, wool sweaters and paua jewelry.

Rainbow over Lake Manapouri

Mossy Beech Forest, Borland Nature Walk

We stayed the night in Invercargill and prepared for our 3 days on Stewert Island, a large island that lies roughly 25 miles south of the South Island. We took the 1 hour ferry from the town of Bluff, apparently the oldest town in New Zealand. It was a bumpy ride across Foveaux Strait, which is often said to be one of the roughest crossings in the world as it lies directly in the roaring 40s. We landed in Oban, the tiny (and only) town on the Island and were quickly whisked away in a van to our Bed and Breakfast in order to avoid the soaking rain that the dark sky began to pour upon us at that moment. It was a sign of things to come!

Stewart Island has a long Maori and European history. Today, most of the island is National Park, filled with bizarre birds and dense, lush rain forest made possible by the incredibly frequent and intense rains. It is said that on Stewart Island you can experience all 4 season in 1 hour. And we certainly did!

We took the first day to explore Halfmoon Bay around Oban and discovered beautiful golden beaches and emerald green waters. Stewart Island certainly is beautiful! The second day we took a quick boat ride out to Ulva Island, a forested island managed by the Department of Conservation as an Open Island Sanctuary. It is one of few predator-free sanctuaries for native birds and plants in New Zealand. We spent about 5 hours meandering our way through the forest, looking for birds that we would not see elsewhere in New Zealand. We managed to see the rare Saddlebacks, Robins, Kakas, Rifleman, Parakeets, Wood Pigeons, Weka, Tui, Bellbirds, and even the elusive Kiwi!

The Kiwi spotting was incredible, we never expected to see one of these flightless, nocturnal birds in the wild! We watched her poke around the leaf litter, unaware of our presence, sniffing out worms with her long thin beak until she lumbered off into the dark forest. Kiwi feathers look more like long brown hair and they have big, muscular legs. What a strange bird!

Around Halfmoon Bay, Stewart Island

Dead Man's Beach, Stewart Island

The elusive Kiwi, Ulva Island

We left Stewart Island early on a freezing cold morning, collected our car in Bluff, and drove east to Curio Bay in the Catlins. The Catlins, situated along the Southern Scenic Route, contain breathtaking scenery that actually reminds me of northern California. The cliffs are buffeted by crashing swells and roaring winds from Antarctica and the ancient podocarp forests march into the sea. We stayed in an amazing place on the beach in Curio Bay that actually had a heated floor in the bathroom! We spent the evening at a beach with a Jurassic-age petrified forest and watched the rare yellow-eyed penguins come ashore for the evening after a day fishing at sea.

Our last day on the road was spent exploring sites in the Catlins in the pouring rain. We visited the spectacular Cathedral Caves at low tide, explored beech forest, checked out a reed-filled estuary, and even managed to find our car surrounded on the road by a flock of sheep moving paddocks! I couldn't resist taking pictures, of course.

Wind swept trees at Slope Point, the Catlins

Petrified Forest, Curio Bay, the Catlins

Cathedral Caves, the Catlins

Sheep on the move!

Finally, we headed north to Dunedin, sad to end our wonderful adventures around the South Island, but happy to be back home!

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Maggots

Everyone knows New Zealand is known for sheep. But did you know that from far away, sheep look like maggots on the hillside? Well, at least that's what I think. When the sheep follow each other in a long line, I call it March of the Maggots! I think sheep are ridiculously cute and I never get enough of them. When I first flew in to Dunedin I could see hundreds of small white fluff balls dotting the green fields below (or maybe that was the snow from the day before). Lambing season had just finished so there were so many wee little lambs running about, I kept looking out the window on our drive into Dunedin exclaiming "Ohhh, how CUTE! Look at the lambs!!"

The main sheep breed here in New Zealand are Romney, an English breed. They are dual purpose wool and meat sheep. Their wool is very course and is used in carpets, blankets, and heavy clothing. In Central Otago I discovered (much to my delight, of course) the big and burly Merino sheep with curling horns. Merino sheep are the oldest and most numerous sheep in the world. It is thought that they orginated in Spain or North Africa. They are very hardy and can survive in the high rugged mountain country of Central Otago. Their wool is so think and wavy that some of the sheep look like giant Shar-Pei dogs! Merino wool is used in clothing and even billiard/pool table cloth!

Sheep are everywhere! Recent estimates put the number of sheep at 43.1 million, that's 12 sheep per every person living in New Zealand!! Driving around Otago provides panoramic vistas of sheep-covered hillsides. Hikes come with a soundtrack of bahhhing and we often encounter sheep on trails because most trails travel through or along farms at some point. Consequently, these trails are closed during lambing season in September and October.

And of course, I'm always Ooing and Ahing over the lambs. I even like the Big Mamma sheep (see photo above) that look like a giant pile of dirty cotton when they lay down. Although, now some of the sheep are naked because they've been sheared. Talk about pathetic, some of them even look embarrassed and I feel sorry for them (as I wear my wool pullover....)!

Funny thing, sheep. The are so skittish. When we walk by them they get nervous and jump away, causing all the sheep in the immediate vacinity to jump away as well. Even if we are 50 feet away behind a fence. Maybe they think we are coming to strip them of their wool coats. We also see many sheep who get "trapped" in the wedge behind an open gate. They endlessly Bahhh to the sheep on the other side, not realizing they just need to walk around the gate in order to reunite with the other sheep Bahhhhing back.

And then of course, there are the sheep's dags (mentioned in yesterday's posting). Dags are the poop-filled wool that hang off the back of the sheep. Longer wool=longer, dirtier dags. My boyfriend and I kept seeing sheep with dirty butts and I proclaimed that if I owned a sheep I would wash its butt wool. A friend of ours explained the term "rattle your dags" and now I find sheep even more hilarious.

Well, now the lambs are growing up and beginning to be hauled off in double trailer trucks to become dinner. These huge trucks speed through Dunedin, leaving the most intense trail of stench in their wake. It makes me want to give up eating meat all together. Almost.

So now you know more than you probably ever wanted to know about sheep. For all your New Zealand sheep needs, check out these websites:

The New Zealand Sheepbreeders Association:
http://www.nzsheep.co.nz/index.html

The Colored Sheep of New Zealand (No joke, that's really what they call them here):
http://www.colouredsheep.org.nz/
I actually find this website quite interesting and like the idea of using naturally colored wool in my knitting projects.

Rare breed information (including other rare livestock):
http://www.rarebreeds.co.nz/