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[Fresh Meat for the Farm.]
One of the greatest banes to the proper enjoyment of country life is the almost constant use of salt meats. It is ham for breakfast, salty, oh, how salty! Then for dinner it is salt pork, boiled or fried. Then for supper a cold slice of ham, or boiled cold shoulder, varied a little by chipped dried beef, which is within itself a “piller of salt.” Then it is drink, drink, from morning to night without abatement.
Now, I know the great difficulties that lay in the way of a farmer, located miles from city or town, to procure a daily supply of fresh meat from the markets, to say nothing of the unbearable cost of such a proceeding to those who live close enough to market to procure a daily supply. Just think of it; we sell our beef cattle to the butcher for, say three cents on foot, and pay for the article on the hook from twelve and a half to twenty cents per pound, and our mutton and pork in the same ratio. It is not my purpose, in this article, to show the relative losses and profits in these transactions, but to show my brother farmers how they can have fresh meat on their tables every day of the year, and every meal of each day if they will, and that at their own first cost prices. This plan of mine is not new; yet, I am safe in saying that it is not practiced by one per cent of the farmers in the nation. Why is this? Ignorance of the way to do it. It can be nothing else. For there is less labor and work attending the process of preserving the meats put up for home consumption, by keeping them fresh, than there is by salting, smoking, wrapping in canvas, and packing away, as now practiced. A second great advantage is, that the curing of meats in a fresh state can be accomplished at any season of the year, no matter how hot, and that without ice.
Then, a third consideration is the saving of labor to the farmer’s family during the hot sweltering summer months, in fact, all through the year.
To enable any person to understand the matter, I will explain by briefly stating what we are now doing in the way of preparing our fresh meat for next summer’s use. In the first place, we have as many lard or pork barrels as will be necessary to hold a supply of meat for the family. These barrels are clean, sweet, and tight, one end taken out. They are arranged on a bench in the cellar, open end up. The pigs are killed and cooled in the usual way. When the animal heat is all out they are cut up, cutting off the sausage and lard, the lard cut up ready to be rendered out. The shoulders and sides are then cut up into such sized pieces as may be convenient for table use. These pieces are washed cleanly, and boiled in large kettles, seasoned with salt and pepper to make palatable, and when sufficiently boiled for table use they are placed in a barrel closely together, but not pressed or mashed, thus leaving each piece as near in the shape cut as possible. When the barrel is filled within two inches of the top, we then pour in warm lard until all the crevices between the pieces of meat are filled up, covering the top with one or two inches of the warm lard. Next day we find that the lard has settled down; we fill up again to the top and keep filled until all has become a solid mass of meat and lard. This is the whole secret. You can fill any tight vessel from a one gallon jar to a forty-five gallon barrel in like manner, and if properly done, and kept in a cool place the meat will keep fresh and sweet the year round.
The advantages of this process of keeping meat are manifold. You can kill a fat hog at any season of the year, and its own fat can preserve it, and the fat can be used for culinary purposes just the same as when put up in cans for home use. The shoulders can be thus prepared, and when cold are far superior to salt meat, even after being boiled. The sides when cut in square pieces, with the ribs on, are just as good as when cooked fresh in the fall of the year. Hams, whole, when well cooked and seasoned, retain all their sweetness, and that without being impaired by the excess of salt necessary to keep them. Then, there is no trouble with flies, bugs, or skippers; the meat remains sweet, wholesome, and palatable until the last piece is taken from the bottom. All the care necessary in taking the pieces from the barrel is to press the lard down closely over what is left, and thus exclude the air.
There are two great advantages in this mode of keeping meat; one is, it is fresh, easily digested, and consequently more healthy, and decidedly more pleasant to the taste; and it does not create that burning thirst that is so hard to quench on a hot harvest day. Then it is always ready for table use, and that without requiring your wives, daughters, and house help to melt over a hot stove when the mercury is up among the nineties, a no small saving in threshing time.
The only great drawback that I have found to this plan is, that I can eat twice the amount that I can of salted meats; and, therefore, it requires double the quantity for family use than under the salting process; but I am persuaded that the difference is made up in better health, and smaller doctor bills. Try it on a small scale, and you will always follow it.