Good and wholesome meat should be neither of a pale rosy or pink color, nor of a deep purple. The first denotes the diseased condition, the last proves the animal has died a natural death. Good meat has more of a marble look, in consequence of the branching of the veins which surround the adipose cells. The fat, especially of the inner organs, is always firm and suety and never moist, while in general the fat from diseased cattle is flabby and watery and more often resembles jelly or boiled parchment. Wholesome meat will always show itself firm and elastic to the touch, and exhibit no dampness, while bad meat will appear soft and moist, in fact, often more wet, so that the liquid substance runs out of the blood when pressed hard. Good meat has very little smell and diffuses a certain medicinal odor. This can be distinctly proved by cutting the meat through with a knife and smelling the blade or pouring water over it. Lastly, bad meat has the peculiarity that it shrinks considerably in the boiling, wholesome meat rather swells and does not lose an ounce in weight.
Observations on Pork, Curing Bacon, etc.
Hogs weighing from 150 to 200 pounds are the most suitable size for family use. They should not exceed twelve months in age, as they are much more tender from being young. They should be well kept and should be corn-fed several weeks before being killed. After being properly dressed, they should hang long enough to get rid of the animal heat. When they are ready to be cut up, they should be divided into nine principal parts, two hams, two shoulders, two middlings, the head or face, jowl and chine. The hog is laid on its back to be cut up. The head is cut off just below the ears, then it is split down on each side of the backbone, which is the chine. This is divided into three pieces, the upper portion being a choice piece to be eaten cold. The fat portion may be cut off to make lard. Each half should then first have the leaf fat taken out, which is done by cutting the thin skin between it and the ribs, when it is easily pulled out. Just under this, the next thing to be removed is the mousepiece or tenderloin, lying along the edge, from which the backbone was removed, commencing at the point of the ham. This is considered the most delicate part and is used to make the nicest sausage. Just under this tenderloin are some short ribs about three inches long, running up from the point of the ham which are known as the griskin. This is removed by a sharp knife being run under it, taking care to cut it smooth and not too thick. When broiled, it is as nice as a partridge.
The ribs are next taken out of the shoulder and middling, though some persons prefer leaving them in the middling. In this case seven should be taken from the shoulder, by a sharp knife cutting close to the ribs, which make a delicious broil. Then cut off the ham as near the bone as possible, in a half circle. The shoulder is then cut square across just behind the leg. The feet are then chopped off with a sharp axe or cleaver. From the shoulder, they should be cut off leaving a stump of about two inches. From the ham, they should be cut off at the joint, as smoothly as possible, and then you may proceed to salt the meat.
In order to impart redness to the hams, rub on each a teaspoonful of pulverized saltpetre before salting. If the weather is very cold, warm the salt before applying it. First rub the skin side well with salt and then the fleshy side, using for the purpose a shoe-sole or leather glove. No more salt should be used than a sufficiency to preserve the meat, as an excess hardens the meat. A bushel of salt is sufficient for a thousand pounds of meat. For the chine and ribs a very light sprinkling of salt will suffice.
The meat as salted should be packed with the skin side down, where it should remain from four to six weeks, according to the weather. If the weather is mild, four weeks will answer. Should the weather be very cold and the pork in an exposed place, it will freeze, and the salt, failing to penetrate the meat, will be apt to injure it.
After it has taken salt sufficiently, the old Virginia mode is to break the bulk, shake off the salt, rub the joint pieces (hams and shoulders) with good, green-wood ashes (hickory preferred). Then rebulk it and let it remain two weeks longer, when it should be hung up with the joints down and the other pieces may be hung up for smoking at the same time. It is not necessary that the smoke-house should be very tight, but it is important that the pork should not be very close to the fire.
A smothered fire made of small billets of wood or chips (hickory preferred), or of corn cobs, should be made up three times a day till the middle of March or first of April, when the joint pieces should be taken down and packed in hickory or other green-wood ashes, as in salt, where they will remain all the summer without danger of bugs interfering with them.
This recipe has been obtained from an old Virginia family, famous for their skill in this department of housekeeping. This mode of curing makes the best bacon in the world, far superior to what are generally called Virginia cured hams.
Shoat (which I must explain to the uninitiated is a term applied in the South to a young pig past the age when it may be cooked whole) should be kept up and fattened on buttermilk, several weeks before being killed, as this makes the flesh extremely delicate. It is best killed when between two and three months old. It should then be divided into four quarters. It is more delicate and wholesome eaten cold.