TO CURE BACON, BEEF, PORK, SAUSAGE,
To Cure Bacon.
To one thousand weight of pork, put one bushel of fine salt, one pound
and a half of saltpetre rolled fine and mixed with the salt; rub this on
the meat and pack it away in a tight hogshead; let it lay for six weeks,
then hang it up and smoke it with hickory wood, every day for two weeks,
and afterwards two or three times a week for a month; then take it down
and rub it all over with hickory ashes, which is an effectual remedy
against the fly or skipper.
When the weather is unusually warm at the time of salting your pork,
more care is requisite to preserve it from taint. When it is cut up, if it seems
warm, lay it on boards, or on the bare ground, till it is sufficiently cool for
salting; examine the meat tubs or casks frequently, and if there is an appearance
of mould, strew salt over; if the weather has been very warm after packing, and on
examining, you should find evidence of its spoiling, lose no time in
unpacking the meat; for a hogshead of hams and shoulders that are in
this state, have six pounds of brown sugar, three pounds of salaeratus,
mixed with half a bushel of salt; rub each piece with this, and as you
pack it in the hogshead, (which should be well washed and cleaned,)
sprinkle a little coarse salt over each layer of pork, and also on the
bottom of the hogshead.
I have known this plan to save a large quantity
of pork, that would have been unfit for use, if it had not been
discovered and attended to in time. Some persons use crushed charcoal to
purify their meat. Shoulders are more easily affected than hams, and if
the weather is warm the ribs should be cut out of the shoulders.
Jowls also require particular care; black pepper, about a pound to a hogshead,
sprinkled on the meat before it is hung up to smoke, is valuable as a
preventive where flies are troublesome; have a large pepper-box kept
for the purpose, and dust every part that is exposed; pepper is also
good to put on beef before it is hung up to dry; wash it off before
cooking, and it does not injure the flavor.
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