430 RURAL HOURS 
* 
ers have many things to look after just now. The position of an 
American housewife is rarely, indeed, a sinecure, but in the 
country there is always a much larger share of responsibility at- 
tached to the office than in towns. In rural life, baking and churn- 
ing, the pastry and cakes, curing hams, and preparing sausages, 
pickling and preserving, laying down eggs and butter, and even 
making the coarser soaps and candles of the family, are included in 
her department. In towns all these things are found for cash or 
credit, at the grocers, or bakers, or confectioners. Of course, 
when the pork is brought in, there is a great deal to be done : 
some pork is to be corned ; hams, and jowls, and bacon are to be 
looked after ; sausage moat, head cheese, and soused pigs' feet, 
must be prepared. 
Salt and smoked meats of all kinds are very much used in 
this country, more so, probably, than in any part of Europe at the 
present day. This sort of food made a large portion of the house- 
hold stock in former ages ; four or five hundred years ago fresh 
meat was only eaten at certain seasons. Beef, and mutton, and 
even geese, were regularly killed for salting in the autumn, and 
laid by as winter provisions. At present the amount of salted 
and smoked food eaten in Europe is much smaller. 
With us, particularly in the country, few meals are made with- 
out some dish of this kind, either breakfast, dinner, or tea: 
smoked fish, or broiled or cold ham, for instance, in the morning ; 
ham, or bacon, or tongue, or corned beef, or it may be corned 
pork, for dinner; and chipped smoked beef, or tongue, for tea. 
Towards spring, in many villages and hamlets, it is not easy to 
procure a supply of fresh meat ; and salt provisions of all kinds 
become not only the morceau de resistance, but also the hors 
