PREFACE.
This treatise comprises light and heavy salting, saccharine and muriatic preservative fluids, drying by gentle heat and air currents, smoking with woods, peat and turfs, marinating of fish and bucaning[A] of meats, and the whole processes of potting, preserving, and pickling.
That there exists a necessity for such a work as this, is but too evident from the disappointments experienced every summer, not only by those who purchase at the shops, but the heads of families, who, replenishing their store-rooms annually, reasonably expect that every article, when produced at table, will meet its meed of praise.
Hams, hung meats, cured tongues, &c., as well as the more expensive sorts of fish, as smoked and kippered salmon, are often so loaded with salt as to be hard, tough, and barely eatable; and, on the other hand, are often found in a state of slow decomposition, unwholesome and disgustful.
To obtain perfection in this art, much more depends upon the fuel made use of than is generally supposed, and I have herein adapted the different sorts of wood, &c., to the particular articles to be acted upon.
To render this manual available to all classes of society, from the butteries of the nobility to the more humble cupboard of the tradesman, as also to the proprietors of Italian warehouses, of hotels, refreshment-rooms, and to fishmongers, pastrycooks, &c. &c., I have laid down rules and receipts in intelligible language and arrangement, and I trust that there is not a single instance in the whole of these pages, where any noxious or deleterious ingredients are recommended to be used, and by which the stomach and system are made to suffer to please the eye and the palate.
Instructions for an exceedingly useful and cheap apparatus for curing and smoking is appended, as well as the best method of keeping, for a length of time, every description of goods so cured and preserved.
Amongst the marinated fish and bucaned meats will be found many of the most delicious specimens that a nicely discerning judgment could dictate, and which are certain of extensive patronage, after having been once partaken of.
I beg to refer my readers to the “Notes” at the conclusion of this work, as exponents of gross errors long cherished in the old common practice, and of facts so self-evident as not to be resisted.
J. R., Junior.
[A] “Bucaning” is a method of preserving meats, &c., partly by drying and partly by smoking with the embers of wood fires, and retaining all the palatable and nutritious juices. It must have had its origin with the rude hunters of the forests, who, for want of a chimney, laid sticks across, at a proper distance from the heat.