BACON. 15 
stoned, and halved raisins are interspersed with the pork; about 
a quarter of a pound of the fruit to each pound of meat is 
sufficient. So that the full flavour of the pie may be appreciated, 
no sage is to be included, and only a moderate seasoning of salt, 
and pepper is to be used. 
At St. Stephen’s, Westminster, in former days, the presiding 
genius over the kitchen arrangements was one Bellamy, famous 
for his pork pies, which have gained immortality, since the elder 
Pitt in his last dying words expressed a wish for one of these 
Bellamy dainties. Sam Weller, expostulating with Mr. Winkle 
for his escapade from Mr. Pickwick, exclaimed : “Come, Sir! this 
is too rich. as the young lady said when she remonstrated with 
the pastrycook arter he’d sold her a pork pie as had got nothin’ 
but fat inside.” Jn 1666 Pepys bought some pork from a butcher, 
who “ by the same token commended it as the best in England 
for cloath and colour.” The Duc de Richelieu’s cook became 
noted by boiling down forty hams to make stock for a single soup. 
Sydney Smith, when writing to Lady Holland in January, 1809, 
said: ‘‘ Many thanks for two fine Gallicia hams ; but as for boiling 
them in wine, I am not as yet high enough in the Church for that, 
so they must do the best they can in water.” But the day of 
getting good old-fashioned country-cured ham, and bacon, is 
practically a thing of the past, particularly in our large cities. 
Instead of its taking three months to cure the meat after the 
patient, old-time, wholesome way, the modern hog walks 
into the packing-house yard in the morning, and within two or 
three days is shipped as cured hams. The beautiful brown colour 
that once was the result of smoking with wood, is now procured 
in a few hours by logwood, or other dyes. The smoky flavour 
is produced by pyrolignic acid ; and, instead of the old-fashioned 
sweet pickle, « composition is used of borax, boracie acid, 
sulphites, salicylic, and benzoic acids. But to paint a ham with 
the acid (pyroligneous) of wood vinegar, is an ineffective sub- 
stitute for smoking in a Hampshire chimney where wood fires 
are burnt, so that the hams treated therein are invariably 
alkaline, with their albumin coagulated by the continued heat, 
and their flesh interpenetrated by creosote fumes, whereby 
microbic engendure therein is prevented. At the Zaduska, 
or Russian luncheon, one dish which is sometimes seen Is raw 
sucking-pig, which, though not sounding nice, is distinctly good, 
being served in very small cubes, highly seasoned, and laid on 
