HOW WE CURED OUR HAMS.
I have now recounted our experience in keeping cows, pigs, chickens,
ducks, rabbits, and pigeons; and with everything but the rabbits we
were amply satisfied with the return we received for our labor. We had
a constant supply of milk, butter, eggs, ducks, chickens, and pork,
not only fresh, but in the shape of good hams and bacon.
I do not know whether it is not presumptuous, in the face of Miss
Acton, Mrs. Rundle, and so many other authorities, not forgetting the
great Alexis Soyer, to give "our method of curing" the last-mentioned
dainties; but we think we may as well follow up the history of our
pigs, from the sty to the kitchen. I always found that the recipes
usually given for salting pork contained too much saltpetre, which not
only renders the meat hard, but causes it to be very indigestible. The
following is the manner in which they were cured by ourselves:
For each ham of twelve pounds weight:
Two pounds of common salt.
Two ounces of saltpetre.
¼ pound of bay salt.
¼ pound of coarse sugar.
The hams to be well rubbed with this mixture, which must be in the
finest powder. It is always the best plan to get your butcher to rub
the meat, as a female hand is hardly heavy enough to do it
effectually; they are then placed in a deep pan, and a wine-glass of
vinegar is added. They should be turned each day; and for the first
three or four should be well rubbed with brine. After that time it
will be sufficient, with a wooden or iron spoon, to well ladle it over
the meat. They should remain three weeks in the pickle. When removed
from it, they must be well wiped, put in brown-paper bags, and then
smoked the _wood_ smoke for three weeks.
We once had nearly a whole pig spoiled by its being taken to a
baker's, where it was _dried_, but not smoked. When it came back it
resembled very strong tallow.
In villages it is usual to send bacon and hams to be dried in the
chimneys of farm-houses where wood is burnt, in the old-fashioned
manner, on dogs; but if resident in or near a small town, there is
always a drying-house to be met with, where we believe sawdust is used
for fuel. We have had our own dried in this manner, and always found
them excellent.
We used the same pickle for twenty-four pounds' weight of bacon, with
the exception that we allow two pounds more of common salt, and when
it is turned the second time the same quantity of salt is rubbed into
it.
Some persons make a pickle of water, salt, sugar, and saltpetre,
boiled together, and when cold put in the hams, etc., without any
rubbing. We have never tried that way for meats that are to be dried,
but can strongly recommend it for salt beef, pork, or mutton. The
following is the pickle always used in our kitchen:
Three gallons of _soft_ water.
One pound of coarse sugar.
Two ounces of saltpetre.
Three pounds of common salt.
Boil together, and let it be well skimmed; then, when cold, the meat
to be well wiped and put into it. It will be fit to cook in ten days,
but may be kept without injury for two months, when the pickle should
be reboiled and well skimmed. The meat should be covered with brine
and the pan have a cover.
We have put legs of mutton into this pickle, and can assure the reader
it is an excellent mode of cooking this joint; and as it is one which
frequently makes its appearance at table where the family is large, it
is sometimes a pleasant method of varying the dish. It is the best way
of any we know of, for curing tongues; it has the great advantage of
being always ready for use, and you are not fearful of the
carelessness of servants, who not unfrequently forget to look to the
salting-pans.
We can recommend a dish not often seen at table, and that is a sirloin
of beef put into this pickle for about a fortnight. It is infinitely
superior either to the round or edgebone, and certainly not so
extravagant as the last-named joint.
A friend has told us that we should procure some juniper-berries to
put into our ham-pickle, but there were none to be purchased in our
neighborhood, and as we were quite ignorant of the flavor they might
impart, we did not trouble ourselves to get them. I am fond of old
proverbs, and as our hams and bacon were always good, we determined to
"let well alone."
CHAPTER X1.
OUR BREAD.
Any lady who thinks of trying a country residence, should see that it
possess a small brick oven, for "home-made" bread ought always to be
considered indispensable in the country. We did not discover that our
new home was without one till after we entered it. We were laughed at
by our landlord when we mentioned our want of this convenience.
"Why!" cried he, "there is a baker's shop not five minutes walk from
the house."
"Never mind," said I, "how near the baker's shop may be; we mean to
have all our bread made at home. It will be, we are sure, better to do
so, both on the score of health and economy."
"But I really," said the gentleman, "cannot afford to build you an
oven; it would cost me $100 at the least."
At this, H., who had resided for a short time in a house where the
bread was made at home, laughed, and said, "Really, Mr. L., you need
not fear that we wish to put you to so much expense, and it is perhaps
but fair that we should meet you half-way in the matter; so if you
will find labor we will find materials: or reverse it, if you please."
Mr. L. remembered that he had in some outhouse a quantity of "fire
bricks," and it was arranged that we should pay for the labor of
constructing a three-peck oven. This occasioned on our part an outlay
of $10, and this small sum was the source of considerable saving to us
yearly.
We were more fortunate with our bread than with our butter-making, for
Mary was a capital baker; our bread was always made from the best
flour. We all liked it much better than bakers' bread, and it was much
more nourishing. Indeed, when I was once in Kent during "hopping," and
saw that the women who resided in the neighborhood always gave up half
a day's work weekly for the purpose of going home to bake, I used to
wonder why they did not purchase their bread from a baker in the
village. I was informed by one of them to whom I put the question,
"Lord, ma'am, we could not work on bakers' bread, we should be
half-starved; it's got no _heart_ in it."
To a small family, perhaps, the saving might not be considered an
object, but any one who has for a few months been accustomed to eat
home-made bread, would be sorry to have recourse to the baker's; the
loaves purchased are usually spongy the first day, and dry and harsh
the second. It is not only that other ingredients than flour, yeast,
and water are mixed in the dough, but it is seldom sufficiently baked;
bread well made at home and baked in a brick oven for a proper time,
is as good at the end of a week as it is the second day.
I have heard several persons say, "I should like home-made bread if it
were baked every day, but I don't like eating stale bread four or five
days out of the seven." If they stayed with us a day or two, they
became convinced that bread which had been made three or four days did
not deserve the epithet of "stale."
I will now proceed to show the reader how much flour was consumed in
our household, consisting of thirteen persons.
We used to bake weekly twenty-eight pounds of flour, of the best
quality; this produced _forty-two_ pounds of bread. I will give in the
most explicit manner I can directions for making it, which I imagine
any servant will be able to comprehend:
Place in a large pan twenty-eight pounds of flour; make a hole with
the hand in the centre of it like a large basin, into which strain a
pint of yeast from the brewer's; this must be tasted, and if too
bitter a little flour sprinkled in it, and then strained directly;
then pour in two quarts of water, of the temperature of 100', that is,
what is called blood-heat, and stir the flour round from the bottom of
the hole you have formed with the hand, till that part of the flour is
quite thick and well mixed, though all the rest must remain unwetted;
then sprinkle a little flour over the moist part, and cover with a
cloth: this is called "sponge," and must be left half an hour to rise.
During this time the fire must be lighted in the oven with fagots, and
the heat well maintained till the bread is ready to enter it. At the
end of the half-hour add four quarts of water, of the same heat as the
previous two quarts, and well knead the whole mass into a smooth
dough. This is hard work, and requires strength to do it properly.
It must be again covered and left for one hour. In cold weather both
sponge and dough must be placed on the kitchen-hearth, or it will not
rise well.
Before the last water is put in, two table-spoonfuls of salt must be
sprinkled over the flour.
Sometimes the flour will absorb another pint of water.
When the dough has risen, it must be made up into loaves as quickly as
possible; if much handled then, the bread will be heavy.
It will require an hour and an half to bake it, if made into
four-pound loaves.
While the dough is rising the oven must be emptied of the fire, the
ashes swept from it, and then well wiped with a damp mop kept for the
purpose. To ascertain if it is sufficiently heated, throw a little
flour into it, and if it brown _directly_, it will do.
I think I have stated every particular necessary to enable a novice to
make a "batch" of good bread. I will sum up the articles requisite to
produce forty-two pounds of the best quality:
Flour, 28 pounds.
Water at 100', 12 or 13 pints.
Two table-spoonfuls of salt.
Yeast, 1 pint.
Bake one hour and a half.
The quantity made was ten and a half quarterns, or four-pound loaves;
and, as I have said, supplied our family of thirteen persons for the
week. For the same number, when we were residing in town, the baker
used to leave _thirteen_ quarterns weekly.
One day, in the country, when, from the accidental absence of the
bread-maker, we had to be supplied from the baker, we were surprised
to hear that at the nursery-breakfast the children (six) and nurse
consumed more than a two-pound loaf, and then were complaining of
being "so hungry" two hours after. I thought of the words of the
Kentish hopper, "that there was no heart in bakers' bread."
The servant who has the management of the oven should be instructed to
take care that the wood-ashes are not thrown into the dust-hole with
the ashes from the grates. They are always valuable in the country;
and, as I have mentioned, the wooden articles used in the dairy should
always be scrubbed with them. Should the water which is used in the
house be hard, and any washing done at home, they should be place in a
coarse cloth over a tub, and water poured over them several times to
make lye, which softens the water, and saves soap much more than soda,
and is likewise better for the linen.
The brick oven will often prove a source of great convenience,
independent of bread-making. It is just the size to bake hams or
roasting pigs, and will, when dinner-parties are given, frequently
prove much more useful to the cook than an extra fire.
The fagots are sold by the hundred, and the price is usually $6 25 for
that quantity.