Ham or bacon, however well cured, will never be good unless the
pork of which it is made has been properly fed. The hogs should be
well fattened on corn, and fed with it about eight weeks, allowing
ten bushels to each hog. They are best for curing when from two to
four years old, and should not weigh more than one hundred and
fifty or one hundred and sixty pounds. The first four weeks they
may be fed on mush, or on Indian meal moistened with water; the
remaining four on corn unground; giving them always as much as
they will eat. Soap-suds may be given to them three or four times
a week; or oftener if convenient.
When killed and cut up, begin immediately to salt them. Rub the
outside of each ham with a tea-spoonful of powdered saltpetre, and
the inside with a tea-spoonful of cayenne pepper. Having mixed
together brown sugar and fine salt, in the proportion of a pound
and a half of brown sugar to a quart of salt, rub the pork well
with it. This quantity of sugar and salt will be sufficient for
fifty pounds of meat. Have ready some large tubs, the bottoms
sprinkled with salt, and lay the meat in the tubs with the skin
downward. Put plenty of salt between each layer of meat. After it
has lain eight days, take it out and wipe off all the salt, and
wash the tubs. Make a pickle of soft water, equal quantities of
salt and molasses, and a little saltpetre; allowing four ounces of
saltpetre to two quarts of molasses and two quarts of salt, which
is the proportion for fifty pounds of meat. The pickle must be
strong enough to bear up an egg. Boil and skim it; and when it is
cold, pour it over the meat, which must be turned every day and
basted with the pickle. The hams should remain in the pickle at
least four weeks; the shoulders and middlings of the bacon three
weeks; and the jowls two weeks. They should then be taken out and
smoked. Having washed off the pickle, before you smoke the meat,
bury it, while wet, in a tub of bran. This will form a crust over
it, and prevent evaporation of the juices. Let the smoke-house be
ready to receive the meat immediately. Take it out of the tub
after it has lain half an hour, and rub the bran evenly over it.
Then hang it up to smoke with the small end downwards. The smoke-house
should be dark and cool, and should stand alone, for the
heat occasioned by an adjoining--building may spoil the meat, or
produce insects. Keep up a good smoke all day, but have no blaze.
Hickory is the best wood for a smoke-house fire, In three or four
weeks the meat will be sufficiently smoked, and fit for use.
During the process it should be occasionally taken down, examined,
and hung up again. The best way of keeping hams is to wrap them in
paper, or, to sew them in coarse cloths (which should be white-washed)
and bury them in a barrel of hickory ashes. The ashes must
be frequently changed.
An old ham will require longer to soak, and longer to boil than a
new one.
Tongues may be cured in the above manner.