[Footnote 41: Cf. the following traditional formula as practised in
Virginia:
A VIRGINIA RECIPE FOR CURING HAMS
"Rub each ham separately with ½ teaspoonful of saltpetre (use a small spoon); then rub each ham with a large tablespoonfulof best black pepper; then rub each ham with a gill of molasses (black strap is best).
Then for 1,000 lbs. of ham take 3-1/4 pecks of coarse salt, 2-1/2 lbs. of saltpetre, 2 qts. hickory ashes, 2 qts. molasses, 2 teacupfuls of red pepper.
"Mix all together on the salting table. Then rub each ham with this mixture, and, in packing, spread some of it on each layer of ham. Use no more salt than has been mixed. Pack skin down and let stand for five weeks, then hang in the smoke house for five or six weeks, and smoke in damp weather, using hickory wood.
"As a ham, however well cured, is of no use to civilized man until it is cooked, and as this crowning mystery is seldom revealed out of Virginia, it may not be out of place to record here the process."
A VIRGINIA RECIPE FOR COOKING HAMS
Soak over night in cold water, having first scrubbed the ham with a small brush to remove all the pepper, saltpetre, etc., left from the curing process.
Put on to boil next morning in tepid water, skin downwards, letting it simmer on back of stove, never to boil hard. This takes about four hours (or until it is done, when the ham is supposed to turn over, skin upwards, of its own accord, as it will if the boiler is large enough). Set aside over another night in the water it has boiled in.
The following day, skin and bake in the oven, having covered the ham well with brown sugar, basting at intervals with cider. When it is well baked, take it out of the oven and baste another ten to twenty minutes in the pan on top of the stove. The sugar crust should be quite brown and crisp when done.