CURING BACON. 2} 7 



market, or any other, both bacon and hams, must be knocked hard 

 and packed into a sugar hogshead, or something similar, to hold 

 about ten hundred weight. Bacon can only be cured from the mid- 

 die of September until the middle of April." 



The annexed system is the one usually pursued in Westphalia : 



" Six pounds of rock salt, two pounds of powdered loaf sugar, 

 three ounces of saltpetre, and three gallons of spring or pure water, 

 are boiled together. This should be skimmed when boiling, and 

 when quite cold poured over the meat, every part of which must 

 be covered with this brine. Small pork will be sufficiently cured in 

 four or five days ; hams, intended for drying, will be cured in four 

 or five weeks, unless they are very large. This pickle may be 

 used again and again, if it is fresh boiled up each time with a small 

 addition to the ingredients. Before, however, putting the meat into 

 the brine, it must be washed in water, the blood pressed out, and the 

 whole wiped clean. 



" Pickling-tubs should be larger at the bottom than at the top, 

 by which means, when well packed, the pork will retain its place 

 until the last layer is exhausted. When the pork is cool it may be 

 cut up, the hams and shoulders reserved for bacon, and the re- 

 mainder salted. The bottom of the tub or barrel should be covered 

 with rock salt, and on it a layer of meat placed, and so on until the 

 tub is filled. The salt should be used liberally, and the barrel filled 

 with strong brine boiled and skimmed, and then cooled. 



"The goodness and preservation of hams and shoulders depends 

 on their smoking as well as their salting. Owing to some miscon- 

 struction of the smoke-house, and to the surface of the meat not 

 oeing properly freed from saline matter, or other causes, it not un- 

 frequently happens that during the process of smoking, the meat is 

 constantly rnoist, and imbibes a pyroligneous acid taste and smell, 

 destructive of its good qualities. 



" The requisites of a smoke-house are, that it should be perfectly 

 dry; not warmed by the fire that makes the smoke; so far from 

 the fire, that any vapor thrown off in the smoke may be condensed 

 before reaching the meat ; so close as to exclude all flies, mice, &c., 

 and yet capable of ventilation admitting the escape of smoke. 



"The Westphalian hams, the most celebrated in Europe, are 

 principally cured at and exported from Hamburg. The smoking 

 of these is performed in extensive chambers, in the upper stories of 

 high buildings. Some are four or five stories high, and the smoke 

 is conveyed to these rooms from fires in the cellar through tubes, on 

 which the vapor is condensed, and the heat absorbed, so that the 

 smoke is both dry and cool when it comes in contact with the meat. 

 They are thus kept perfectly dry, and acquire a color and flavor 

 unknown to those smoked in the common metnod. 



" Hams after being smoked may be kept any length of time by 

 10 



