Page:Art of Cookery 1774 edition.djvu/356

318 THIS is cut different, because of making ham, bacon and pickled pork. Here you have fine spare-ribs, chines, and griskins, and fat for hog's lard. The liver and crow is much admired fried with bacon; the feet and ears are both equally good soused.

Pork comes in season at Bartholomew-tide, and holds good till Lady-day.

IN a fore-quarter of lamb mind the neck-vein; if it be an azure blue it is new and good, but if greenish or yellowish, it is near tainting, if not tainted already. In the hind-quarter, smell under the kidney, and try the knuckle; if you meet with a faint scent, and the knuckle be limber, it is stale killed. For a lamb's head, mind the eyes; if they be sunk or wrinkled, it is stale; if plump and lively, it is new and sweet.

IF the bloody vein in the shoulder looks blue, or a bright red, it is new killed; but if blackish, greenish, or yellowish, it is flabby and stale; if wrapped in wet cloths, smell whether it be musty or not. The loin first taints under the kidney, and the flesh, if stale killed, will be soft and slimy.

The breast and neck taints first at the upper-end, and you will perceive some dusky, yellowish, or greenish appearance; the sweetbread on the breast will be clammy, otherwise it is fresh and good. The leg is known to be new by the stiffness of the joint; if limber and the flesh seems clammy, and has green or yellowish specks, it is stale. The head is known as the lamb's. The flesh of a bull-calf is more red and firm than that of a cow-calf, and the fat more hard and curdled. If the mutton be young, the flesh will pinch tender; it old, it will wrinkle and remain so; if young, the fat will easily part from the lean; if old, it will stick by strings and skins; if ram-mutton, the fat feels spungy, the flesh close grained and tourhg, not rising again, when dented with your finger; if ewe-mutton, the flesh is paler than weather-mutton, a closer grain, and easily parting. If there be rot, the flesh will be palish, and the fat a faint whitish, inclining to yellow, and the flesh will be loose at the bone. If you squeeze it hard, some drops of water will