Instead of alcohol, a much cheaper vehicle is water saturated with sulphurous acid; and if a few drops of creosote be added, the mixture will become very efficacious. A solution of red sulphate of iron is powerfully antiseptic; but after some time it gives a deposit of the oxide, which disguises the preparation in a great degree.
According to Tauffier, animal substances may be preserved more permanently by a solution of one part of chloride of tin in 20 parts of water, sharpened with a little muriatic acid, than even by alcohol.
For preserving animal bodies in an embalmed form, mummy-like, a solution of chloride of mercury and wood vinegar are most efficacious. As there is danger in manipulating with that mercurial salt, and as in the present state of our knowledge of creosote we have it in our power to make a suitably strong solution of this substance in vinegar or spirit of wine, I am led to suppose that it will become the basis of most antiseptic preparations for the future. From the statements of Pliny, it is plain that wood vinegar was the essential means employed by the antient Egyptians in preparing their mummies, and that the odoriferous resins were of inferior consequence.
Flesh.—The ordinary means employed for preserving butcher meat are, drying, smoking, salting, and pickling or souring.
Drying of animal fibre.—The best mode of operating is as follows:—The flesh must be cut into slices from 2 to 6 ounces in weight, immersed in boiling water for 5 or 6 minutes, and then laid on open trellis-work in a drying-stove, at a temperature kept steadily about 122° F., with a constant stream of warm dry air. That the boiling water may not dissipate the soluble animal matters, very little of it should be used, just enough for the meat to be immersed by portions in succession, whereby it will speedily become a rich soup, fresh water being added only as evaporation takes place. It is advantageous to add a little salt, and some spices, especially coriander seeds, to the water. After the parboiling of the flesh has been completed, the soup should be evaporated to a gelatinous consistence, in order to fit it for forming a varnish to the meat after it is dried, which may be completely effected within two days in the oven. By this process two-thirds of the weight is lost. The perfectly dry flesh must be plunged piece by piece in the fatty gelatinous matter liquefied by a gentle heat; then placed once more in the stove, to dry the layer of varnish. This operation may be repeated two or three times, in order to render the coat sufficiently uniform and thick. Butcher’s meat dried in this way, keeps for a year, affords, when cooked, a dish similar to that of fresh meat, and is therefore much preferable to salted provisions. The drying may be facilitated, so that larger lumps of flesh may be used, if they be imbued with some common salt immediately after the parboiling process, by stratifying them with salt, and leaving them in a proper pickling-tub for 12 hours before they are transferred to the stove. The first method, however, affords the more agreeable article.
Smoking.—This process consists in exposing meat previously salted, or merely rubbed over with salt, to wood smoke, in an apartment so distant from the fire as not to be unduly heated by it, and into which the smoke is admitted by flues at the bottom of the side walls. Here the meat combines with the empyreumatic acid of the smoke, and gets dried at the same time. The quality of the wood has an influence upon the smell and taste of the smoke-dried meat; smoke from beech wood and oak being preferable to that from fir and larch. Smoke from the twigs and berries of juniper, from rosemary, peppermint, &c., imparts somewhat of the aromatic flavour of these plants. A slow smoking with a slender fire is preferable to a rapid and powerful one, as it allows the empyreumatic principles time to penetrate into the interior substance, without drying the outside too much. To prevent soot from attaching itself to the provisions, they may be wrapped in cloth, or rubbed over with bran, which may be easily removed at the end of the operation.
The process of smoking depends upon the action of the wood acid, or the creosote volatilized with it, which operates upon the flesh. The same change may be produced in a much shorter time by immersing the meat for a few hours in pyrolignous acid, then hanging it up in a dry air, which, though moderately warm, makes it fit for keeping, without any taint of putrescence. After a few days exposure, it loses the empyreumatic smell, and then resembles thoroughly smoked provisions. The meat dried in this way is in general somewhat harder than by the application of smoke, and therefore softens less when cooked, a difference to be ascribed to the more sudden and concentrated operation of the wood vinegar, which effects in a few hours what would require smoking for several weeks. By the judicious employment of pyrolignous acid diluted to successive degrees, we might probably succeed in imitating perfectly the effect of smoke in curing provisions.
Salting.—The meat should be rubbed well with common salt, containing about one sixteenth of saltpetre, and one thirty-secondth of sugar, till every crevice has been impregnated with it; then sprinkled over with salt, laid down for 24 or 48 hours, and, lastly, subjected to pressure. It must next be sprinkled anew with salt, packed into proper vessels, and covered with the brine obtained in the act of pressing, rendered stronger by boiling down. For household purposes it is sufficient to rub the meat well with good salt, to put it into vessels, and load it with heavy weights, in order to squeeze out as much pickle as will cover its surface. If this cannot be had, a pickle must be poured on it, composed of 4 pounds of salt, 1 pound of sugar, and 2 oz. of saltpetre, dissolved in 2 gallons of water.