In cold weather salt should be warmed before the fire. Indeed, some use it quite hot. This causes it to penetrate more readily into the meat than it does when rendered hard and dry by frost.
Salting troughs or tubs should be clean, and in an airy place. After meat of any kind has been once well rubbed, keep it covered close, not only with the lid of the vessel, but, in addition, with the thick folds of some woollen article, in order to exclude the air. This is recommended by good housekeepers; yet in Hampshire the trough is sometimes left uncovered, the flitches purposely exposed to the air.
To cure Bacon.
As soon as the hog is cut up, sprinkle salt thickly over the flitches, and let them lie on a brick floor all night. Then wipe the salt off, and lay them in a salting trough. For a large flitch of bacon, allow 2 gallons of salt, 1 lb. of bay salt, 4 cakes of salt prunella, a ¼ lb. of saltpetre, and 1 lb. of common moist sugar; divide this mixture into two parts; rub one half into it the first day, and rub it in well. The following day rub the other half in, and continue to rub and turn the flitch every day for three weeks. Then hang the flitches to drain, roll them in bran, and hang them to smoke, in a wood-fire chimney. The more quickly, in reason, they are smoked, the better the bacon will taste.
To cure a Ham.
Let a leg of pork hang for three days; then beat it with a rolling pin, and rub into it 1 oz. of saltpetre finely powdered, and mixed with a small quantity of common salt; let it lie all night. Make the following pickle: a quart of stale strong beer, ½ lb. of bay salt, ½ lb. of common salt, and the same of brown sugar; boil this twenty minutes, then wipe the ham dry from the salt, and with a wooden ladle, pour the pickle, by degrees, and as hot as possible, over the ham; and as it cools, rub it well into every part. Rub and turn it every day, for a week; then hang it, a fortnight, in a wood-smoke chimney. When you take it down, sprinkle black pepper over the bone, and into the holes, to keep it safe from hoppers, and hang it up in a thick paper bag.
Another.
For one of 16 lb. weight. Rub the rind side of the ham with ¼ lb. of brown sugar, then rub it with 1 lb. of salt, and put it in the salting-pan, then rub a little of the sugar, and 1 oz. of saltpetre, and 1 oz. salt prunel, pounded, on the lean side, and press it down; in three days turn it and rub it well with the salt in the pan, then turn it in the pickle for three weeks; take it out, scrape it well, dry it with a clean cloth, rub it slightly with a little salt, and hang it up to dry.
Another.
Beat the ham well on the fleshy side with a rolling pin, then rub into it, on every part, 1 oz. of saltpetre, and let it lie one night. Then take a ½ pint of common salt, and a ¼ pint of bay salt, and 1 lb. of coarse sugar or treacle; mix these ingredients, and make them very hot in a stew-pan, and rub in well for an hour. Then take ½ a pint more of common salt and lay all over the ham, and let it lie on till it melts to brine; keep the ham in the pickle three weeks or a month, till you see it shrink. This is sufficient for a large ham.