Culinary Chemistry / The Scientific Principles of Cookery, with Concise Instructions for Preparing Good and Wholesome Pickles, Vinegar, Conserves, Fruit Jellies, Marmalades, and Various Other Alimentary Substances Employed in Domestic Economy, with Observations on the Chemical Constitution and Nutritive Qualities of Different Kinds of Food.

by Friedrich Christian Accum

SMOKE-DRYING, OR CURING OF BACON, HAMS, AND BEEF, AS PRACTISED IN WESTPHALIA.

The custom of fumigating hams with wood smoke is of a very ancient date, it was well known to the Romans, and Horace mentions it.[32]

“Fumosæ cum pede pernæ.”

[32] Sat. II. 2-117.

Several places on the Continent are famous for the delicacy and flavour of their hams; Westphalia, however, is at the head of the list.

The method of curing bacon and hams in Westphalia (in Germany) is as follows: Families that kill one or more hogs a year, which is a common practice in private houses, have a closet in the garret, joining to the chimney, made tight, to retain smoke, in which they hang their hams and bacon to dry; and out of the effect of the fire, that they may be gradually dried by the wood smoke, and not by heat.

The smoke of the fuel is conveyed into the closet by a hole in the chimney, near the floor, and a place is made for an iron stopper to be thrust into the funnel of the chimney, to force the smoke through the hole into the closet. The smoke is carried off again by another hole in the funnel of the chimney, above the said stopper, almost at the ceiling, where it escapes. The upper hole must not be too big, because the closet must be always full of smoke, and that from wood fires. Or the bacon and hams are simply placed in the vicinity of an open fire-place, where wood is burned, so as to be exposed to the smoke of the wood.