How to Cut Up and Cure Pork.—Have the hog laid on his back on a stout, clean bench; cut off the head close to the base. If the hog is large, there will come off a considerable collar, between head and shoulders, which, pickled or dried, is useful for cooking with vegetables. Separate the jowl from the face at the natural joint; open the skull lengthwise and take out the brains, esteemed a luxury. Then with a sharp knife remove the back-bone the whole length, then the long strip of fat underlying it, leaving about one inch of fat covering the spinal column.
The leaf lard, if not before taken out for the housewife's convenience, is removed, as is also the tenderloin—a fishy-shaped piece of flesh—often used for sausage, but which makes delicious steak. The middling or sides are now cut out, leaving the shoulders square-shaped and the hams pointed, or they may be rounded to your taste. The spare-ribs are usually wholly removed from the sides, with but little meat adhering. It is the sides of small, young hogs cured as hams that bear the name of breakfast bacon, The sausage meat comes chiefly in strips from the backbone, part of which may also be used as steak. The lean trimmings from about the joints are used for sausage, the fat scraps rendered up with the backbone lard.
The thick part of the backbone that lies between the shoulders, called griskin or chine, is separated from the tapering, bony part, called backbone by way of distinction, and used as flesh. The chines are smoked with jowls, and used in late winter or spring.
When your meat is to be pickled it should be dusted lightly with saltpetre sprinkled with salt, and allowed to drain twenty-four hours; then plunge it into pickle, and keep under with a weight. It is good policy to pickle a portion of the sides. They, after soaking, are sweeter to cook with vegetables, and the grease fried from them is much more useful than that of smoked meat.
If your meat is to be dry salted, allow one teaspoonful of pulverized saltpetre to one gallon of salt, and keep the mixture warm beside you. Put on a hog's ear as a mitten, and rub each piece of meat thoroughly. Then pack skin side down, ham upon ham, side upon side, strewing on salt abundantly. It is best to put large and small pieces in different boxes for the convenience of getting at them to hang up at the different times they will come into readiness. The weather has so much to do with the time that meat requires to take salt that no particular time can be specified for leaving it in.
The best test is to try a medium-sized ham; if salt enough, all similar and smaller pieces are surely ready, and it is well to remember that the saltness increases in drying. Ribs and steaks should be kept in a cold, dark place, without salting, until ready for use. If you have many, or the weather is warm, they keep better in pickle than dry salt. Many persons turn and rub their meat frequently. We have never practiced this, and have never lost any.
When the meat is ready for smoking, dip the hocks of the joints in ground black pepper and dust the raw surface thickly with it. Sacks, after this treatment, may be used for double security, and I think bacon high and dry is sweeter than packed in any substance. For sugar-cured hams we append the best recipe we have ever used, though troublesome.
English Recipe for Sugar-Curing Hams.—So soon as the meat comes from the butcher's hand rub it thoroughly with the salt. Repeat this four days, keeping the meat where it can drain. The fourth day rub it with saltpetre and a handful of common salt, allowing one pound of saltpetre to seventy pounds of meat. Now mix one pound of brown sugar and one of molasses, rub over the ham every day for a fortnight, and then smoke with hickory chips or cobs. Hams should be hung highest in meat-houses, because there they are less liable to the attacks of insects, for insects do not so much infest high places—unlike human pests.
Pickle.—Make eight gallons of brine strong enough to float an egg; add two pounds of brown sugar or a quart of molasses, and four ounces of saltpetre; boil and skim clean, and pour cold on your meat. Meat intended for smoking should remain in pickle about four weeks. This pickle can be boiled over, and with a fresh cup of sugar and salt used all summer. Some persons use as much soda as saltpetre. It will correct acidity, but we think impairs the meat.
Washing Preparation.—Take a 1/4 of a pound of soap, a 1/4 of a pound of soda, and a 1/4 of a pound of quicklime. Cut up the soup and dissolve it in 1 quart of boiling water; pour 1 quart of boiling water over the soda, and 3 quarts of boiling water upon the quicklime. The lime must be quick and fresh; if it is good it will bubble up on pouring the hot water upon it. Each must be prepared in separate vessels. The lime must settle so as to leave the water on the top perfectly clear; then strain it carefully (not disturbing the settlings) into the washboiler with the soda and soap; let it scald long enough to dissolve the soap, then add 6 gallons of soap water. The clothes must be put to soak over night, after rubbing soap upon the dirtiest parts of them. After having the above in readiness, wring out the clothes which have been put in soak, put them on to boil, and let each lot boil half an hour; the same water will answer for the whole washing. After boiling each lot half an hour drain them from the boiling water put them in a tub and pour upon them two or three pailsful of clear, hot water; after this they will want very little rubbing; then rinse through two waters, blueing the last. When dried they will be a beautiful white. After washing the cleanest part of the white clothes, take two pails of the suds in which they have been washed, put it over the fire and scald, and this will wash all the flannels and colored clothes without any extra soap. The white flannels, after being well washed in the suds, will require to be scalded by turning on a teakettle of boiling water.