Management.—Examine and trim it, when brought in, as you do all other kinds of meat. Sprinkle the joints intended for roasting with a little salt, to improve their relish. Cut the joints intended for boiling into suitable pieces, and rub them well with salt as you put them into the salting-pan.
VENISON.
Management.—To prevent venison from tainting, take the kernel out of the haunch, wash the whole with vinegar and water, then wipe it quite dry, and dust it with ground ginger or pepper, to keep off the flies.—Thus managed, it may be kept a fortnight.
General Business of the Larder.
Joints of meat, game, &c. should be hung where there is a current of dry air, till they are tender. If they be not kept long enough, they will be hard and tough;—if too long, they lose their flavour. Much loss is sustained by the spoiling of meat in warm weather; to prevent which, as far as possible, it must be turned daily, end for end, and wiped every morning and night, with a clean, dry cloth, to free it and keep it from damp and moisture. If it be feared that any of the ripe meat will not keep till wanted, it should be parboiled, or part-roasted, by which means it may be kept a day or two the longer. Pieces of charcoal should also be put over meat, and a plug of charcoal put into the vents of fowls, &c. a string being tied round their necks. Before dressing meat it must be well washed and wiped dry; except roasting-beef, the dry outsides of which must be pared off. When meat indicates the least degree of putridity it should be dressed with out delay, else it becomes unwholesome. In the latter case, however, even fish, as well as meat, may be reclaimed, by putting pieces of charcoal into the water with it, when boiled or parboiled.—Tainted meat may also be restored by washing it in cold water, and afterwards in strong chamomile tea, and rubbing it dry with a clean cloth; after which it may be sprinkled with salt, and suffered to remain till the next day, if necessary.
In frosty weather all meat should be brought into the kitchen over night, or at least several hours before it is to be dressed.
Early in the morning remove the cold meat into clean dishes; change also, all the broths, soups, gravies, stock, cullis, &c. that require it, into clean scalded stone-pans; and never leave any eatables in copper or brass vessels, for if touched with salt or vinegar, or any acid, and left wet, they will corrode and gather poison.
Turn and rub the meat that is in salt; after which let the Larder be well scoured and cleaned out.
Dried meats, hams, tongues, bacon, &c. must be hung up in a cool, dry place, otherwise they will become rusty.
Bread should be kept in an earthen pan, with a cover, to exclude the air;—it should not be cut till it is a day old.