214: THE HOG. 



third day for six successive times, when the bacon will be sufficiently 

 salt. Then proceed to rub off all the stale briny salt, and lay on 

 each flitch a covering of clean fresh bran or sawdust, and take it to 

 the drying loft. It should be there hung by means of crooks fast- 

 ened in the neck of the flitch, and remain for fourteen or sixteen 

 days. The fuel most proper for drying bacon is cleft oak or ash, 

 what is commonly called cord wood. 



In Buckinghamshire, as soon as the flitches are cut from the hog 

 they lay them on a form or table in a slanting position, and, suppos- 

 ing the whole hog to have weighed 240 or 280 Ibs., take a quarter 

 of a pound of saltpetre, pounded very fine, and sprinkle it all over 

 the flitches, rubbing it well into the shoulder parts especially ; they 

 then suffer them to remain twelve hours, after which they should be 

 rubbed dry, and in the mean time seven pounds of salt mixed with 

 one pound and a quarter of coarse brown sugar put into a frying- 

 pan and heated on a clear fire, stirring it well that it may all be of 

 the same temperature. This mixture, as hot as the hand can pos- 

 sibly bear it, may now be rubbed well into the flitches, which are 

 then put one upon the other and laid in a salting-pan or other 

 contrivance, in order that the brine may form and be kept from 

 wasting. The bacon must be kept in this situation four weeks, 

 turning it and basting it well with the brine twice or thrice a week. 

 At the expiration of this time take it from the brine, hang it up 

 to dry, and smoke it, if preferred, which in the absence of a regular 

 smokehouse may be done as follows: Hang up the bacon in a 

 chimney or other orifice, then underneath put down a layer of dry - 

 straw, upon this a layer of mixed shavings, keeping out those from 

 deal or fir. next a good layer of sawdust and some juniper-berries, 

 or branches where procurable, and over all a mantle of wet straw 

 or litter, which makes the fire give out much smoke without burn- 

 ing away too rapidly. This smoking must be repeated three or 

 four times, or till the bacon appears thoroughly dry, when it may 

 be hung up in the kitchen, or any dry place convenient. 



In Kent the hog is swaled or singed, in preference to scalding and 

 scraping the skin, as this latter process, it is considered, tends to 

 soften the rind and injure the firmness of the flesh. The flitches are 

 rubbed with dry salt and saltpetre in the proportion of one-third of 

 the latter to two of the former, and laid in a trough, and there each 

 one sprinkled over with this mixture. Here they continue for three 

 weeks or a month, according to their size, during which time they 

 are taken out once in two or three days and well rubbed with the 

 brine and turned. 



They are dried before a slow fire, and this process occupies abou 4 

 the same time that the salting has done. When it is completed the 

 flitches are either hung up in a dry place, or deposited on stone slabs 

 until wanted for domestic use. 



