When it is done, take it up, carefully strip off the skin, and reserve it to cover the ham when it is put away cold. Rub the ham all over with some beaten egg, and strew on it fine bread-raspings shaken through the lid of a dredging box. Then place it in an oven to brown and crisp, or on a hot dish set over the pot before the fire. Cut some writing paper into a handsome fringe, and twist it round the shank-bone before you send the ham to table. Garnish the edge of the dish with little piles or spots of rasped crust of bread.
In carving a ham, begin not quite in the centre, but a little nearer to the hock. Cut the slices very thin. It is not only a most ungenteel practice to cut ham in thick slices, but it much impairs the flavour.
When you put it away after dinner, skewer on again the skin. This will make it keep the better.
Ham should always be accompanied by green vegetables, such as asparagus, peas, beans, spinach, cauliflower, brocoli, &c.
Bacon also should be well soaked before it is cooked; and it should be boiled very slowly, and for a long time. The greens may be boiled with the meat. Take care to skim the pot carefully, and to drain and squeeze the greens very well before you send them to table. If there are yellow streaks in the lean of the bacon, it is rusty, and unfit to eat.
Take a very fine ham (a Westphalia one if you can procure it) and soak it in lukewarm water for a day or two, changing the water frequently. The day before you intend cooking it, take the ham out of the water, and (having removed the skin) trim it nicely, and pour over it a bottle of Madeira or sherry. Let it steep till next morning, frequently during the day washing the wine over it. Put it on the spit in time to allow at least six hours for slowly roasting it. Baste it continually with hot water. When it is done, dredge it all over with fine bread-raspings shaken on through the top of the dredging box; and set it before the fire to brown.
For gravy, take the wine in which the ham was steeped, and add to it the essence or juice which flowed from the meat when taken from the spit. Squeeze in the juice of two lemons. Put it into a sauce-pan, and boil and skim it. Send it to table in a boat. Cover the shank of the ham (which should have been sawed short) with bunches of double parsley, and ornament it with a cluster of flowers cut out with a penknife from raw carrots, beets, and turnips; and made to imitate marygolds, and red and white roses.
DIRECTIONS FOR CURING HAM OR BACON.
Ham or bacon, however well cured, will never be good unless the pork of which it is made has been properly fed. The hogs should be well fattened on corn, and fed with it about eight weeks, allowing ten bushels to each hog. They are best for curing when from two to four years old, and should not weigh more than one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty pounds. The first four weeks they may be fed on mush, or on Indian meal moistened with water; the remaining four on corn unground; giving them always as much as they will eat. Soap-suds may be given to them three or four times a week; or oftener if convenient.