Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/53

Rh bacon has so long been decreed to Hampshire, that I shall give no other receipts for it, but such as are practised in that, and the adjoining counties. The best method of keeping, feeding, and killing pigs, is detailed in 's Cottage Economy; and there, also, will be found directions for salting and smoking the flitches, in the way commonly practised in the farm-houses in Hampshire. The smoking of bacon is an important affair, and experience is requisite to give any thing like perfection in the art. The process should not be too slow nor too much hurried. The skin should be made of a dark brown colour, but not black; for by smoking the bacon till it becomes black, it will also be made hard, and cease to have any flavour but that of rust.—Before they are dressed, both bacon and hams require to be soaked in water; the former an hour or two, the latter, all night, or longer, if very dry. But, according to some, the best way to soak a ham is to bury it in the earth, for one, two, or three nights and days, according to its state of dryness.

Meat will not take salt well either in frosty or in warm weather. Every thing depends upon the first rubbing; and the salt, or pickle, should not only be well rubbed in, but this is best done by a hard hand. The following general direction for salting meat may be relied on:—"6 lbs. of salt, 1 lb. of coarse sugar, and 4 oz. of saltpetre, boiled in 4 gallons of water, skimmed and allowed to cool, forms a very strong pickle, which will preserve any meat completely immersed in it. To effect this, which is essential, either a heavy board or flat stone must be laid upon the meat. The same pickle may be used repeatedly, provided it be boiled up occasionally with additional salt to restore its strength, diminished by the combination of part of the salt with the meat, and by the dilution of the pickle by the juices of the meat extracted. By boiling, the albumen, which would cause the pickle to spoil, is coagulated and rises in the form of scum, which must be carefully removed."

It is a good practice to wash meat before it is salted. This is not generally done; but pieces of pork, and, more particularly, beef and tongues, should first lie in cold spring water, and then be well washed to cleanse them from all impurities, in order to ensure their being free from taint; after which, drain the meat, and it will take the salt much