As far as I know, for any type of meat it will go from soft to hard and then back to soft as you go from short to long cooking times. So lamb cooked to pink is quite delicious. But if you want it cooked all the way through, you have to go for a very long time to get back to a nice texture.
And of course eating meat that is pink is a luxury of having very high level of hygiene from the farm all the way to the table. This is difficult and expensive, so even in the highest income countries it has only become common in the last few decades.
Here in Scandinavia our traditional dishes involving lamb are also based on boiling or steaming the meat for many hours. If you had offered my late grandfather a piece of lamb that was pink inside, he would have refused to eat it.
That's also because the primary function of sheep in Scandinavia was to provide wool, so they would be deep in mutton territory by the time they were slaughtered and require low & slow cooking to make the meat edible.
> And of course eating meat that is pink is a luxury of having very high level of hygiene from the farm all the way to the table. This is difficult and expensive, so even in the highest income countries it has only become common in the last few decades.
Is this true? People have been eating rare or medium-rare meat since forever. Maybe it was more a cultural thing in Scandinavia to boil or steam. I certainly know people who order New Zealand grass bed beef steak well done (while the waiter cringes).
On the other hand if you offered me pink chicken I would be revolted.
> People have been eating rare or medium-rare meat since forever.
It's not safe, one thing are the bacteries that you can catch from raw/undercooked meat that was not stored correctly, another thing is the parasites, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichinella_spiralis
And of course eating meat that is pink is a luxury of having very high level of hygiene from the farm all the way to the table. This is difficult and expensive, so even in the highest income countries it has only become common in the last few decades.
Here in Scandinavia our traditional dishes involving lamb are also based on boiling or steaming the meat for many hours. If you had offered my late grandfather a piece of lamb that was pink inside, he would have refused to eat it.