Since 1985, soft-spoken John Jamison and his wife, Sukey, have raised lamb with quiet passion on a 212-acre farm in Latrobe, Pa. Their meat has about as much in common with the lamb sold in supermarkets as a Versace gown has with a dress from Kmart.

Jamison Farm lamb turns up at the nation's top restaurants, from Philadelphia hot spots such as Tangerine, Jack's Firehouse, and the White Dog Café to the haute-cuisine Alain Ducassse in New York City, Charlie Trotter's in Chicago, and Renoir in Las Vegas. It's also available my mail.

Business is booming. At any given time, the Jamison's have 500 to 700 lambs on their farm, and they produce 5,000 to 6,000 a year.

The Jamison's, who were high school sweethearts, came by farming accidentally. How they did it, and the decisions that make their product distinctive, are an interesting lesson in why foods from small producers win such a loyal following.

"We wanted to buy an old farmhouse and fit it up," said John Jamison, but the farmer wouldn't sell it without the accompanying 65 acres.

Noting the quality of the hay grown on their land, they decided to introduce livestock. "Sheep are gentle animals, and they don't break things the way cows do," Jamison said. "So we became sheep farmers."

The business got off to a rocky start in 1985, when Jamison was laid off from his day job as a coal salesman. "I took out an ad in Smithsonian magazine to sell our lamb by mail," he said.

The couple's big break came at a hospital fund-raiser in Pittsburgh. Cooking for the event were such luminaries as chefs Larry Forgione, Paul Prudhomme and Jean-Louis Palladin. The lamb contributed by the Jamison's was supposed to be cooked by Wolfgang Puck.

Unfortunately, Puck had to cancel at the last minute. A then-unknown chef named Jean-Georges Vongerichten (now celebrity chef-owner of New York restaurants Jo Jo, Jean Georges and Vong) took his place.

Vongerichten cooked the lamb. Palladin tasted it and promptly started ordering it for his renowned restaurant, Jean-Louis, at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. The Jamison's delivered the first order - three baby lambs - in the back of their car.

Jamison lamb is not inexpensive. A single three- to four-pound leg costs $39. Then again, you'd probably have to travel to the salty meadows of Brittany in northwestern France to find anything remotely like it. It is tender without being soft or mushy, and flavorful without being strong or gamy. Imagine tender young veal with a delicate lamb flavor, and you begin to get the idea.

John Jamison says three factors set his lamb apart from the supermarket brands. First, the animals are slaughtered at 3 to 6 months of age instead of 7 to 12 months that is the industry norm.

Then, there's the feed and where the lambs eat it. Jamison sheep graze on meadow grass, not grain, and they do so while roaming the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania, not penned up in a feedlot. "Out lambs get plenty of exercise, so the meat has some firmness, but it's still tender because the sheep are so young," Jamison said.

Grass feeding has another advantage. "The flavor of our lamb changes with the seasons," he said. "Spring grasses contain wild onion and chives; summer grasses have lots of wildflowers." Supermarket lamb often tastes unpleasantly fatty, he added, because of the oil in the corn in the commercial feed other sheep eat.

Finally, the Jamison's do their own processing at a plant on their farm, using a proprietary slow cooling method. "Slow cooling gives the meat a more natural texture," Jamison said.

Lamb is associated with springtime rituals in at least two of the world's great religions. Jews place a lamb shank on the Passover platter. And lamb, a traditional symbol of Christ, is often served at Easter by Italians, Greeks and others.

Above is a recipe for Roast Leg of Lamb Provencal flavored with olives, garlic and rosemary. I cut these ingredients into slivers and insert them into slits in the meat to add flavor. The preparation time is only about 15 minutes, but jaws will drop when holiday guest see the magnificent roasted meat and taste the rich Mediterranean flavor.