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Classic
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page 380
cold, and they will keep good for several months.
Tongue may be pickled with the beef. Brine made the same way, with the addition
of two pounds more of salt, is good for hams and shoulders.
Brine for pickled pork should have all the salt it will dissolve, and a peck or
half bushel in bottom of barrel. If pork is salted in this manner it will never
spoil, but the strength of the brine makes it necessary to salt the hams and
side-meat separately. Pork when killed should be thoroughly cooled before
salting, but should not remain longer than one or two days. It should never be
frozen before salting, as this is as injurious as salting before it is cooled.
Large quantities of pork are lost by failing to observe these rules. If pickled
pork begins to sour, take it out of the brine, rinse well in clear cold water,
place a layer in a barrel, on this place charcoal in lumps the size of ahen's
egg or smaller, add a layer of meat and so on, until all is in the barrel, cover
with a weak brine, let stand twenty-four hours; take meat out, rinse off the
charcoal, put it into a new strong brine, remembering always to have plenty of
salt in the barrel (more than the water will dissolve). If the same barrel is
used, cleanse it by placing a small quantity of quicklime in it, slack with hot
water, and add as much salt as the water will dissolve, and cover tightly to
keep the steam in.--D. Buxton.
TO CURE HAMS. --For every ham, half a pound each of salt and brown sugar, half
an ounce each of cayenne pepper, allspice, and saltpeter; mix and rub well over
the hams, laying them in the barrel they are to be kept in with the skin side
down; let them remain a week; make a pickle of water and salt strong enough to
bear an egg, add to it half a pound of sugar, pour over the hams till they are
thoroughly covered, let them remain four weeks, take out and hang up to dry for
at least a week before smoking; smoke with corn-cobs or hickory chips. An old
but a good way.--Mrs. S. M. Guy.
TO KEEP HAMS. --For one hundred pounds of meat, take eight pounds salt, two
ounces saltpeter and four gallons water; put hams in this pickle in the fall,
keeping them well under the brine; in April take out, drain three or four days,
slice as for cooking, fry nearly as much as for table, pack in stone jars,
pressing down the slices as fast as they are laid in the jar; when full put on a
weight, and when entirely cold, cover with the fat fried out. Prepared in this
way they retain the ham flavor without being smoked. The gravy left from frying
will be found very useful in cooking.
TO SALT HAMS. --Take a barrel (oak is best), place in it a layer of meat; then a
layer of salt, and so on, until barrel is full and meat well covered with salt.
After five or six weeks, take out meat, and if not salt enough, repack in a less
amount of salt than was at first used. Take out again, and smoke over hickory
chips and chunks eight or ten days, and then hang up until used. Some put hams
thus smoked and cured into paper sacks; when this is done watch closely to
prevent mold. Others pack them away in oats or in ashes, or rub them with black
pepper coarsely ground, putting cayenne pepper on where the bone is exposed. All
these are safeguards against flies and mold.
TO SALT PORK. --Allow the meat to stand until the animal heat is entirely out of
it; cut into strips crosswise; cover the bottom of a barrel with salt, and pack
in the pork closely edgewise, with rind next the barrel, cover each layer with
salt, and proceed in like manner until all has been put in. Make a strong brine
sufficient to cover the pork (soft water is best, and there is no danger of
getting it too salt), boil, skim, and pour into the barrel while boiling hot.
Have a board cut out round, a little smaller than the barrel, put over the pork,
and on it place a weight heavy enough to keep
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