Descriptive analysis of meat from young ruminants in Mediterranean systems.

This paper describes the rigorous methodology used to establish a descriptive panel and select ballot attributes to evaluate the sensory quality of meat from young ruminants. The work focused on sheep and cattle, which, in Spain as elsewhere in the Mediterranean area, are slaughtered at an early age to obtain light carcasses. The prescreening, screening, training and performance evaluation procedures proposed by Cross et al. (1978) were used to select and train the panel. The nonredundant, most discriminant and frequently detected attributes of aroma, flavor and texture were determined, to constitute the final ballot. The panel evaluated the sensory quality of two categories of Spanish commercial lamb: lechal, or milk-fed lambs, slaughtered at 12 kg live weight, and ternasco, light lambs, slaughtered at 24 kg live weight, from the Lacha and Rasa Aragonesa breeds. As live weight was shown to have more effect on sensory quality than breed, each category had its own characteristic texture, aroma and flavor.