688 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



a supply of sausages and lard that you can 

 use without any disagreeable doubts of 

 their cleanliness. Before hog killing you 

 should have your meat house and store 

 room in perfect order, and every imple- 

 ment and vessel requisite, ready for use. 

 'I'here should be on hand a sufficient sup- 

 ply of salt, saltpetre, ground cayenne pep- 

 per, sage, spices, &c. To have them to 

 hunt up, clean and prepare, is a great back- 

 set to work, while perhaps you are out of 

 doors and rain approaching. Being pre- 

 pared in your department, I take it for 

 granted that your paragon of a husband 

 has had his pork bred and fed in the most 

 approved style. That during the slaugh- 

 ter a hand has been detailed to look care- 

 fully over the heads and feet after the ani- 

 mal ha^ passed off the platform, and after 

 putting them in ])erfect order, has washed 

 the outside carefully. That a second per- 

 son, armed and equipped with an abund- 

 ance of clean water and towels has follow- 

 ed the opener and washed out the inside 

 until a search warrant could find no trace 

 of the murder. In short, that you have 

 no room to believe that the animal was hu- 

 manely allowed to keep a part of his cloth- 

 ing and take a farewell wallow in his old 

 haunts. These pains can surely be. taken 

 for home, and such pork we know com- 

 mands a premium in the family market. — 

 Hoo;s that \veio;h between two and three 

 hundred pounds are the nicest for family 

 use. Larger than that they are too gross, 

 and do not allow fresh pieces for the table 

 as often as is desirable consist(^nt with 

 good economy. Smaller there is too much 

 bone and the meat becomes too dry. 



CUTTING OUT PORK. 



This work belongs to the male division 

 of the house, and the master or well trained 

 old servant will do it up without your ever 

 thinking of it — probably. But lest you 

 should not have had time to teach that old 

 man, or your patriotic lord should have 

 gone t® the Presidential election, we will 

 give a few brief hints on this branch of the 

 business. Have the hog laid on his back. 

 Clean the carcass of the leaf fat. Take 

 off the feet at the ankle joints. Cut the 

 head off close to the shoulders ; separate 

 the jowl from the skull, and open the 

 upper part lengthways on the underside so 

 as to remove the brains fully. Remove 

 the backbone in its whole length and with 



a sharp knife cut off the skin, taking all 

 but about a half inch of fat off the spinal 

 column. The middling or side is now cut 

 from between the quarters, leaving the 

 shoulder square shaped, and the ham 

 pointed, or which may be rounded to suit 

 you. The ribs are next removed partially 

 or entirely from the sides. The fat trim"- 

 mings from the hams and flabby parts of 

 the sides are rendered up with the back- 

 bone strip. The sausage meat is cut from 

 between the leaf fat and the ribs ; any 

 other lean pieces are used for the same 

 purpose. The thick part of the backbone 

 being now cut from the tapering bony end 

 you can now proceed to 



SALTING. 



When your meat is to be pickled it 

 should be heavily sprinkled with salt and 

 drain for 24 hours. When it is to be pre- 

 pared with dry salt, mix one tea spoonful 

 of pulverized saltpetre to one gallon of 

 salt, and keep it warm beside yon. Cut 

 off a hog's ear, and with it rub every piece 

 of meat with the salt, on the skin side un- 

 til it is moist, then lay it down and rub 

 and cover the flesh part entirely with salt. 

 Pack hams upon hams, and sides upon 

 sides, &c., Sec, for convenience in getting 

 them to hang up at different times, as they 

 will not all be ready at once. It is like- 

 wise best to put the large and small pieces 

 in different divisions. The weather has 

 so much to do with the time that meat re- 

 quires to take salt, that no time can be 

 safely specified. After three weeks fry a 

 piece from the thickest part of a medium 

 sized ham, if salt enough, all pieces small 

 and of tiie same size are ready for smok- 

 ing, and the larger ones can wait a few 

 days. The jowl and chine are salted in 

 the same way for smoking. The heads 

 after soaking a day and draining well are 

 salted less heavily and used fresh. The 

 backbones and spare ribs are just suffi- 

 ciently salted to keep — the last, if the 

 weather is freezing may be kept quite 

 fresh. The feet may be packed away in 

 salt if not to be immediately used, and 

 will prove almost as good, at any period of 

 the year as when first killed — they are 

 kept thus much better than in pickle, the' 

 ribs, (when the weather makes much salt 

 necessary) keep sweeter in pickle. Many 

 persons turn over and rub their pork once 

 in a week while it is m salt. We have 



