A taste to celebrate

One of the more memorable moments in ''My Big Fat Greek Wedding" comes when Aunt Voula first hears that her niece's betrothed is not merely a WASP, he's -- cue the gasps -- a vegetarian. ''What do you mean, he don't eat no meat?" Voula cries out as the room goes silent. But she quickly recovers her composure. ''Oh, that's OK. I make lamb."

The joke, of course, is that in Greek-American culture, lamb is a staple beyond categorization, let alone dietary restriction. But despite its prominent role in the 2002 movie, in which the main character's family roasts a whole animal on the front lawn, lamb is not just a Greek thing. Throughout much of the world -- particularly the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand -- sheep graze on the land and lamb is an everyday dish.

In most of the United States, however, everywhere but the East and West Coasts, it's anything but. Outside urban areas with large immigrant or Muslim populations, most Americans don't eat much lamb at all, and the nationwide consumption rate has dropped over the decades to less than 1 pound per person per year (compared to 62 pounds of beef).

If they do eat lamb, the season is probably spring, when lamb's connection to Easter and Passover intersects with agricultural cycles and an urge to celebrate new life. Not surprisingly, the industry thinks lamb is ripe for a comeback and deserves more than an annual place at the holiday table. The American Lamb Board has spent more than $5 million on a marketing campaign that started in 2002 to promote domestic lamb, while marketing divisions of the American Sheep Industry Association have teamed up with counterparts in Australia and New Zealand, which dominate global production. The meat from down under is widely available in Boston-area stores, particularly for Easter on Sunday as roasted legs of lamb figure into many home cooks' plans. Greek Orthodox Easter is celebrated on May 1 this year.

Roasting lamb may mean the cooks have overcome memories of wretched versions of the dish at childhood Sunday dinners. Stephen Pocock, trade marketing manager for Meat and Livestock Australia, says many Americans seem to remember gamy, tough lamb that was either overcooked or was, in fact, mutton -- which is rarely sold today. ''I've been at trade shows in the States and ask people if they'd like to try some lamb, and they immediately say, 'I don't eat lamb,' " he said from his office in Washington, D.C. ''But if I get them to try it, they say, 'Wow! Is that lamb? I don't remember it tasting like that.' "

In their 2000 book ''How to Cook Meat," authors Chris Schlesinger of the East Coast Grill in Cambridge and John Willoughby, executive editor of Gourmet, get downright evangelical about lamb, vowing to ''help break this circle" of consumer neglect of the meat by urging people to eat not just legs, chops, and racks but saddles, loins, shoulders, and ribs. And in materials from the American Lamb Board, executive chef Ernie Quinones of Boston's Mantra restaurant touts lamb's affinity for Indian spices.

Quinones and other local chefs praise US lamb, not only to support domestic agriculture but also because they know it will probably be fresher. Besides, since American lamb is primarily grain-fed or at least ''finished" on grain, the meat tends to be milder in flavor than the grass-fed animals from Australia, New Zealand, or Iceland. (Iceland's lamb is available only for a short season in the fall.) American lamb also comes from much larger animals, meaning a higher meat-to-bone ratio that works better in high-end restaurants.

''When the customers pay good money for a rack of lamb, they want to see more meat," says Quinones. ''We worked with New Zealand lamb and other kinds, but we kept going back to American." Michael Leviton, chef-owner of Lumiere in West Newton, orders his lamb from the acclaimed Niman Ranch in California, which also sells meats directly to consumers (www.nimanranch.com). A tasting panel in The Wall Street Journal recently named Niman's boneless leg of lamb best overall in a taste test of online sources.

As for New Zealand and Australian lamb, says Leviton, ''they're nice products, and the price point is great, but it doesn't sit right with me to pull something halfway around the globe. I don't know when that lamb was butchered, how long it's been sitting in Cryovac by the time it gets to me." Leviton doesn't remember eating much lamb as a child but fell under its spell after he started working as a cook after college. When the meat is done right, the gaminess that some Americans object to can be a subtle -- and welcome -- presence.

''I think I was just exposed to better product," he said. ''I immediately loved the slightly gamy flavor. Sometimes I prefer it to beef. I love the way it marries with flavors like garlic, onions, capers, and olives from southern France and that part of the Mediterranean. That's where my palate lies."

Other chefs and home cooks praise lamb's flavor as interesting enough to stand on its own, treated simply, but also assertive enough to handle powerful spices. When Alyson Erckert, 30, of Watertown was growing up on Long Island, roast leg of lamb was a Christmas tradition, then an Easter one, too. But these days she looks for any excuse to stud a leg with garlic cloves, rub it with fresh rosemary, and roast it to rosy perfection. A dinner party is best, because a leg can easily serve up to 10 people, but sometimes she buys one on sale at the Shaw's Supermarket in Belmont and sits down to dinner with only her fiance, Brad Pond. ''That's when we eat it all week," she says. "I'd have it over roast beef any day."

Erckert also unashamedly admits her attachment to mint jelly, a traditionally English accompaniment to the roast meat. Just as it did in ''My Big Fat Greek Wedding," the combination draws consternation from someone like Peter George, 49, of Tewksbury. ''Ask for mint jelly when you're at a Greek's house, and you'll get the question, 'Did you want toast instead of lamb?' " says George.

He should know: During his childhood in Wilmington, every celebration of his all-Greek family seemed to feature lamb. When the gatherings got bigger, as on holidays, so would the lamb legs. ''My mother would say to the butcher, 'I'll take the biggest leg you've got.' They'd bring something out, and she'd say, 'Got anything bigger?' "

Still, George's lamb consumption has become relatively infrequent, since his wife, Kathy Shinners, doesn't like it. ''She's not Greek," he says with a sigh. ''She tells me when her mother cooked lamb, she burned it until it was like the bottom of a shoe."

When Aaron Bennett, 33, was growing up in Attleboro, lamb was often on the menu, as it was at the house of his wife, Sarah, in East Providence. ''Neither one of us has any particular ethnic background," says Bennett. Still, the meat didn't seem either exotic or a novelty. It's still his favorite meat, because of the flavor and the ease of cooking. ''Lamb, because it's reasonably fatty, is fairly forgiving," he says, ''and you can use high heat or slow roast it." As a result, he has roasted racks, broiled chops, pan-fried burgers, and simmered ground lamb in chili. In other words, he's a marketing department's dream consumer.

The lamb Bennett will never forget was, appropriately enough, the one he ate on his wedding day last fall in Tiverton, R.I. The Westport caterers Smoke + Pickles, co-owned by Dan George, a Lebanese-American, marinated a whole lamb for days in an oregano pesto and showed up at the reception pulling their smoker behind their truck, with the lamb slow roasting inside and the whole contraption looking ''like a locomotive," says Bennett. ''Some of our friends who weren't really into lamb tried it and couldn't believe how good it was," he says. ''People who don't like lamb either haven't tried it or maybe have only had a greasy shoulder chop."

Then again, self-described ''lamb people" like the Bennetts don't mind a good greasy chop, either. When it comes to lamb, they might as well be Greek.

Joe Yonan can be reached at yonan@globe.com.