For a ham twenty-four pounds in weight, take two ounces of saltpetre, half a pound of common salt, one pound of bay salt, and one ounce of black pepper. Mix these together, and rub them well into the ham: then let it stand three days, and at the expiration of that time pour one pound of treacle over it, and let it remain twenty-four hours; after that time, let it be turned every day for a month, and each time rub the liquor well into it. After this, steep the ham in cold water for twelve hours, then dry it well and hang it up. It will not require any further steeping when it is to be boiled; and it should be boiled slowly, say at the rate of about three hours for a ham of the weight of ten pounds. This receipt was given me by Mr. Beaton, and it is impossible for any hams to be better than those cured in this way.
The following is the way of curing hams to give them the Westphalian flavour. For two large hams, take one pound and a quarter of common salt, two ounces and a half of saltpetre, three pounds of bay salt, one pound and a half of brown sugar, and one quart of old beer; boil them all together, and pour the mixture over the hams boiling hot. Turn them and rub them well every day for sixteen days; then smoke them with short horse-litter, and hang them up to dry.
The following is another mode of giving hams the Westphalian flavour, and it is said to be excellent. For two hams weighing thirty pounds, take one pound of common salt, half a pound of bay salt, three ounces of saltpetre, and one ounce and a half of black pepper, the latter ground, and finely sifted. Mix all these well together, and rub the hams with the mixture for four days, turning them every day, and having first washed them well with vinegar. On the fifth day, pour over the hams two pounds of treacle, and rub them well with two ounces of juniper berries bruised. Let them remain in this pickle six weeks, turning and rubbing them daily; then take them out of the pickle, and lay them in spring water for four-and-twenty hours; then wipe them dry and send them to a chimney where wood is burnt. When thoroughly smoked, take them down and put them in a chest with wood ashes. I may here observe that, when hams are cured in any ordinary way, it is said that the Westphalian flavour may be given to them by rubbing over them three table-spoonfuls of a mixture of tar and spirits of wine, when they are just taken out of the pickle.
The following is a mode of making Mutton hams, which some persons are very fond of, though they are too strong for delicate stomachs. Cut a hind quarter of mutton like a ham, and rub it with one ounce of saltpetre, one pound of sugar, and one pound of salt. Lay it in a pan, with the skin downwards for a fortnight, then roll it in bran, and hang it up to dry.
In some places there is no regular larder, but the uncooked meat is kept in a hanging Safe in the open air, which is drawn up and down by a pulley. Cooked meat is either kept in a similar safe, in a fixed safe, in a separate room called a dry larder, or on a table in the centre of the common or wet larder; but, in the latter case, every dish should be covered with a wire-cloth cover to keep off the flies. In many places the salting-room is apart from the larder, and this is a great improvement.
The Dairy should have thick walls, and a brick or stone floor, so contrived that it may be washed with abundance of water every day, and yet have all the water run off by means of a waste-pipe or drain. There should be a kind of shelf of stone or slate round it, about four feet from the ground, and a table of similar materials in the centre, for the convenience of holding the vessels containing the milk and cream; and the window, if there is but one, should look towards the north, and be filled in with wire-cloth, so as to admit the air and yet exclude the flies and other insects. Besides this wirework, the window should also have either a sash frame with ground glass to open inside, or outside shutters, to exclude the sun in very hot weather, and the cold in winter. A thermometer should be kept in every dairy, and the heat should never be allowed to rise above 55°, or to fall below 50°. There should always be a scullery attached to the dairy containing a fireplace and boiler, as the vessels in which milk is kept require to be frequently washed with scalding-hot water to keep the milk sweet, and to prevent the butter and cream from acquiring an unpleasant taste.
Though I do not imagine your knowledge of a dairy to be very great, I suppose you are aware that the milk is drawn from the cow into a can or wooden pail, and brought into the dairy, where it is strained, and then put into shallow vessels or milk-pans, in which it is left for several hours in order that the cream may rise. Cows are generally milked twice a day; the morning's milk being skimmed in the afternoon, when the afternoon's milk is put into pans, or set up as the dairy-maids call it, and the afternoon's milk being skimmed in the morning. The cream, after what is wanted for the table has been taken out, is put into a large wide-mouthed jar or stein, and saved for butter. Cheese is generally made of new milk, which is put at once into the cheese-tub without setting it up in pans. The cheese-tub and cheese-press, the churn and all the apparatus for making butter, generally stand in the dairy scullery, where the operations of cheese and butter making are carried on.
Various kinds of vessels have been recommended for milk, and they have been made of lead, zinc, slate, and other materials. China are the best; but the old-fashioned wooden or earthenware pans appear to be the most general favourites; the only objections being, that wooden pans require a great deal of care to keep them clean, and that the leaden glaze of the earthenware pans is apt to be affected by the acid of the milk, if it should be kept till it becomes sour. No good dairy-maid, however, would ever keep milk in her pans till it became acid: and, if by any chance wooden vessels became tainted by having had in them sour or otherwise spoiled milk, they should be soaked in water in which a large piece of soda has been dissolved; and, if this does not sweeten them, they must be boiled in soda and water, and then immersed in pure cold water for a day or two.
Milk when drawn from the cow is warm, and it should be set up in the dairy before it is quite cold, or the Cream will not rise properly. Cream for butter may stand twelve hours on the milk, but the cream that rises in two or three hours after the milk is set is considered the richest. In many places the milk is skimmed twice, the second time twelve hours after the first; but the second skimming is considered very inferior to the first. In Devonshire, the dairy-maids set the milk-pans on a hot hearth, in order to raise the rich cream peculiar to that county.