Barbecue Mutton appears as a signature dish in 1 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
BBQ Mutton · Louisville
Smoked aged mutton (sheep) with a vinegar-and-pepper dipping sauce and white bread. The western Kentucky BBQ tradition centred in Owensboro, with Louisville echoes on a handful of barbecue menus.
Western Kentucky's barbecue tradition centres on mutton rather than pork, a distinction that goes back to 19th-century immigrant farmers in the Owensboro region who raised sheep for wool and ate the older mutton at community gatherings. The smoked mutton is served chopped or sliced with a thin vinegar-and-black-pepper dipping sauce. The dish is most reliably found west in Owensboro at Moonlite Bar-B-Q and Old Hickory; in Louisville the tradition is now rare on regular menus. The Owensboro Bar-B-Q Festival celebrates mutton each May.