Home Pork Making Part 4

in making lard is to take plenty of time. The cooking must not be hurried in the least. It requires time to thoroughly dry out all the water, and the keeping quality of the lard depends largely upon this. A slow fire of coals only should be placed under the kettle, and great care exercised that no spark snaps into it, to set fire to the hot oil. It is well to have at hand some close-fitting covers, to be put immediately over the kettle, closing it tightly in case the oil should take fire. The mere exclusion of air will put out the fire at once. Cook slowly in order not to burn any of the fat in the least, as that will impart a very unpleasant flavor to the lard. The attendants should stir well with a long ladle or wooden stick during the whole time of cooking. It requires several hours to thoroughly cook a vessel of lard, when the cracknels will eventually rise to the top.

A cool, dry room, such as a bas.e.m.e.nt, is the best place for keeping lard.

Large stone jars are perhaps the best vessels to keep it in, but tins are cheaper, and wooden casks, made of oak, are very good. Any pine wood, cedar or cypress will impart a taste of the wood. The vessels must be kept closed, to exclude litter, and care should be observed to prevent ants, mice, etc., from getting to the lard. A secret in keeping lard firm and good in hot weather is first to cook it well, and then set it in a cool, dry cellar, where the temperature remains fairly uniform throughout the year. Cover the vessels after they are set away in the cellar with closely fitting tops over a layer of oiled paper.

CHAPTER VIII.

PICKLING AND BARRELING.

For salt pork, one of the first considerations is a clean barrel, which can be used over and over again after yearly renovation. A good way to clean the barrel is to place about ten gallons of water and a peck of clean wood ashes in the barrel, then throw in well-heated irons, enough to boil the water, cover closely, and by adding a hot iron occasionally, keep the mixture boiling a couple of hours. Pour out, wash thoroughly with fresh water, and it will be as sweet as a new barrel. Next cover the bottom of the barrel with coa.r.s.e salt, cut the pork into strips about six inches wide, stand edgewise in the barrel, with the skin next the outside, until the bottom is covered. Cover with a thick coat of salt, so as to hide the pork entirely. Repeat in the same manner until the barrel is full, or the pork all in, covering the top thickly with another layer of salt. Let stand three or four days, then put on a heavy flat stone and sufficient cold water to cover the pork. After the water is on, sprinkle one pound best black pepper over all. An inch of salt in the bottom and between each layer and an inch and a half on top will be sufficient to keep the pork without making brine.

When it is desired to pickle pork by pouring brine over the filled barrel, the following method is a favorite: Pack closely in the barrel, first rubbing the salt well into the exposed ends of bones, and sprinkle well between each layer, using no brine until forty-eight hours after, and then let the brine be strong enough to bear an egg. After six weeks take out the hams and bacon and hang in the smokehouse. When warm weather brings danger of flies, smoke a week with hickory chips; avoid heating the air much. If one has a dark, close smokehouse, the meat can hang in it all summer; otherwise pack in boxes, putting layers of sweet, dry hay between.

This method of packing is preferred by some to packing in dry salt or ashes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16. BOX FOR SALTING MEATS.]

RENEWING PORK BRINE.

Not infrequently from insufficient salting and unclean barrels, or other cause, pork placed in brine begins to spoil, the brine smells bad, and the contents, if not soon given proper attention, will be unfit for food. As soon as this trouble is discovered, lose no time in removing the contents from the barrel, washing each piece of meat separately in clean water.

Boil the brine for half an hour, frequently removing the sc.u.m and impurities that will rise to the surface. Cleanse the barrel thoroughly by washing with hot water and hard wood ashes. Replace the meat after sprinkling it with a little fresh salt, putting the purified brine back when cool, and no further trouble will be experienced, and if the work be well done, the meat will be sweet and firm. Those who pack meat for home use do not always remove the blood with salt. After meat is cut up it is better to lie in salt for a day and drain before being placed in the brine barrel.

A HANDY SALTING BOX.

A trough made as shown at Fig. 16 is very handy for salting meats, such as hams, bacon and beef, for drying. It is made of any wood which will not flavor the meat; ash, spruce or hemlock plank, one and a half inches thick, being better than any others. A good size is four feet long by two and one-half wide and one and one-half deep. The joints should be made tight with white lead spread upon strips of cloth, and screws are vastly better than nails to hold the trough together.

CHAPTER IX.

CARE OF HAMS AND SHOULDERS.

In too many instances farmers do not have the proper facilities for curing hams, and do not see to it that such are at hand, an important point in success in this direction. A general cure which would make a good ham under proper conditions would include as follows: To each 100 lbs. of ham use seven and a half pounds Liverpool fine salt, one and one-half pounds granulated sugar and four ounces saltpeter. Weigh the meat and the ingredients in the above proportions, rub the meat thoroughly with this mixture and pack closely in a tierce. Fill the tierce with water and roll every seven days until cured, which in a temperature of 40 to 50 degrees would require about fifty days for a medium ham. Large hams take about ten days more for curing. When wanted for smoking, wash the hams in water or soak for twelve hours. Hang in the smokehouse and smoke slowly forty-eight hours and you will have a very good ham. While this is not the exact formula followed in big packing houses, any more than are other special recipes given here, it is a general ham cure that will make a first-cla.s.s ham in every respect if proper attention is given it.

Another method of pickling hams and shoulders, preparatory to smoking, includes the use of mola.s.ses. Though somewhat different from the above formula, the careful following of directions cannot fail to succeed admirably. To four quarts of fine salt and two ounces of pulverized saltpeter, add sufficient mola.s.ses to make a pasty mixture. The hams having hung in a dry, cool place for three or four days after cutting up, are to be covered all over with the mixture, more thickly on the flesh side, and laid skin side down for three or four days. In the meantime, make a pickle of the following proportions, the quant.i.ties here named being for 100 lbs. of hams. Coa.r.s.e salt, seven pounds; brown sugar, five pounds; saltpeter, two ounces; pearlash or potash, one-half ounce; soft water, four gallons. Heat gradually and as the skim rises remove it.

Continue to do this as long as any skim rises, and when it ceases, allow the pickle to cool. When the hams have remained the proper time immersed in this mixture, cover the bottom of a clean, sweet barrel with salt about half an inch deep. Pack in the hams as closely as possible, cover them with the pickle, and place over them a follower with weights to keep them down. Small hams of fifteen pounds and less, also shoulders, should remain in the pickle for five weeks; larger ones will require six to eight weeks, according to size. Let them dry well before smoking.

WESTPHALIAN HAMS.

This particular style has long been a prime favorite in certain markets of Europe, and to a small extent in this country also. Westphalia is a province of Germany in which there is a large industry in breeding swine for the express purpose of making the most tender meat with the least proportion of fat. Another reason for the peculiar and excellent qualities which have made Westphalian hams so famous, is the manner of feeding and growing for the hams, and finally the preserving, curing, and last of all, smoking the hams. The Ravensberg cross breed of swine is a favorite for this purpose. They are rather large animals, having slender bodies, flat groins, straight snouts and large heads, with big, overhanging ears. The skin is white, with straight little bristles.

A princ.i.p.al part of the swine food in Westphalia is potatoes; these are cooked and then mashed in the potato water. The pulp thus obtained is thoroughly mixed with wheat bran in a dry, raw state; little corn is used.

In order to avoid overproduction of fat and at the same time further the growth of flesh of young pigs, some raw cut green feed, such as cabbage, is used; young pigs are also fed sour milk freely. In pickling the hams they are first vigorously rubbed with saltpeter and then with salt. The hams are pressed in the pickling vat and entirely covered with cold brine, remaining in salt three to five weeks. After this they are taken out of the pickle and hung in a shady but dry and airy place to "air-dry." Before the pickled hams can be put in smoke they are exposed for several weeks to this drying in the open air. As long as the outside of the ham is not absolutely dry, appearing moist or sticky, it is kept away from smoke.

Smoking is done in special large chambers, the hams being hung from the ceiling. In addition to the use of sawdust and wood shavings in making smoke, branches of juniper are often used, and occasionally beech and alder woods; oak and resinous woods are positively avoided. The smoking is carried on slowly. It is recommended to smoke for a few days cautiously, that is, to have the smoke not too strong. Then expose the hams for a few days in the fresh air, repeating in this way until they are brown enough.

The hams are actually in smoke two or three weeks, thus the whole process of smoking requires about six weeks. Hams are preserved after their smoking in a room which is shady, not accessible to the light, but at the same time dry, cool and airy.

THE PIG AND THE ORCHARD.

The two go together well. The pig stirs up the soil about the trees, letting in the sunshine and moisture to the roots and fertilizing them, while devouring many grubs that would otherwise prey upon the fruit. But many orchards cannot be fenced and many owners of fenced orchards, even, would like to have the pig confine his efforts around the trunk of each tree. To secure this have four fence panels made and yard the pig for a short time in succession about each tree, as suggested in the diagram, Fig. 17.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 17. FENCE FOR ORCHARD TREE.]

CHAPTER X.

DRY SALTING BACON AND SIDES.

For hogs weighing not over 125 or 130 lbs. each, intended for dry curing, one bushel fine salt, two pounds brown sugar and one pound saltpeter will suffice for each 800 lbs. pork before the meat is cut out; but if the meat is large and thick, or weighs from 150 to 200 lbs. per carca.s.s, from a gallon to a peck more of salt and a little more of both the other articles should be taken. Neither the sugar nor the saltpeter is absolutely necessary for the preservation of the meat, and they are often omitted.

But both are preservatives; the sugar improves the flavor of the bacon, and the saltpeter gives it greater firmness and a finer color, if used sparingly. Bacon should not be so sweet as to suggest the "sugar-cure;"

and saltpeter, used too freely, hardens the tissues of the meat, and renders it less palatable. The quant.i.ty of salt mentioned is enough for the first salting. A little more

NEW SALT IS ADDED AT THE SECOND SALTING

and used together with the old salt that has not been absorbed. If sugar and saltpeter are used, first apply about a teaspoonful of pulverized saltpeter on the flesh side of the hams and shoulders, and then taking a little sugar in the hand, apply it lightly to the flesh surface of all the pieces. A tablespoonful is enough for any one piece.

If the meat at the time of salting is moist and yielding to the touch, rubbing the skin side with the gloved hand, or the "sow's ear," as is sometimes insisted on, is unnecessary; the meat will take salt readily enough without this extra labor. But if the meat is rigid, and the weather very cold, or if the pieces are large and thick, rubbing the skin side to make it yielding and moist causes the salt to penetrate to the center of the meat and bone. On the flesh side it is only necessary to sprinkle the salt over all the surface. Care must be taken to get some salt into every depression and into the hock end of all joints. An experienced meat salter goes over the pieces with great expedition. Taking a handful of the salt, he applies it dextrously by a gliding motion of the hand to all the surface, and does not forget the hock end of the bones where the feet have been cut off. Only dry salt is used in this method of curing. The meat is never put into brine or "pickle," nor is any water added to the salt to render it more moist.

BEST DISTRIBUTION OF THE SALT.

A rude platform or bench of planks is laid down, on which the meat is packed as it is salted. A boy hands the pieces to the packer, who lays down first a course of middlings and then sprinkles a little more salt on all the places that do not appear to have quite enough. Next comes a layer of shoulders and then another layer of middlings, until all these pieces have been laid. From time to time a little more salt is added, as appears to be necessary. The hams are reserved for the top layer, the object being to prevent them from becoming too salt. In a large bulk of meat the brine, as it settles down, lodges upon the lower pieces, and some of them get rather more than their quota of salt. Too much saltiness spoils the hams for first-cla.s.s bacon. In fact, it spoils any meat to have it too salt, but it requires less to spoil the hams, because, as a rule, they are mostly lean meat. The jowls, heads and livers, on account of the quant.i.ty of blood about them, are put in a separate pile, after being salted. The chines and spareribs are but slightly salted and laid on top of the bulk of neat meat. The drippings of brine and blood from the meat are collected in buckets and sent to the compost heaps. If there are rats, they must be trapped or kept out in some way. Cats, also, should be excluded from the house. Close-fitting boxes, which some use to keep the rats from the meat, are not the best; the meat needs air.

In ten days to three weeks, according to weather and size of the meat, break bulk and resalt, using the old salt again, with just a little new salt added. In four to six weeks more, or sooner, if need be, break up and wash the meat nicely, preparatory to smoking it. Some farmers do not wash the salt off, but the meat receives smoke better and looks nicer, if washed.

CURING PORK FOR THE SOUTH.

This requires a little different treatment. It is dry-salted and smoked.

The sides, hams and shoulders are laid on a table and rubbed thoroughly with salt and saltpeter (one ounce to five pounds of salt), clear saltpeter being rubbed in around the ends of the bones. The pieces are laid up, with salt between, and allowed to lie. The rubbing is repeated at intervals of a week until the meat is thoroughly salted through, and it is then smoked. It must afterward be left in the smokehouse, canvased or buried in a box of ashes, to protect it from the flies.

CHAPTER XI.