Chapter X: How We Cured Our Hams

I have now recounted our experience in keeping cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and pigeons; and with everything but the rabbits we were amply satisfied with the return we received for our labor. We had a constant supply of milk, butter, eggs, ducks, chickens, and pork, not only fresh, but in the shape of good hams and bacon.

I do not know whether it is not presumptuous, in the face of Miss Acton, Mrs. Rundle, and so many other authorities, not forgetting the great Alexis Soyer, to give "our method of curing" the last-mentioned dainties; but we think we may as well follow up the history of our pigs, from the sty to the kitchen. I always found that the recipes usually given for salting pork contained too much saltpetre, which not only renders the meat hard, but causes it to be very indigestible. The following is the manner in which they were cured by ourselves:

For each ham of twelve pounds weight:
Two pounds of common salt.
Two ounces of saltpetre.
¼ pound of bay salt.
¼ pound of coarse sugar.

The hams to be well rubbed with this mixture, which must be in the finest powder. It is always the best plan to get your butcher to rub the meat, as a female hand is hardly heavy enough to do it effectually; they are then placed in a deep pan, and a wine-glass of vinegar is added. They should be turned each day; and for the first three or four should be well rubbed with brine. After that time it will be sufficient, with a wooden or iron spoon, to well ladle it over the meat. They should remain three weeks in the pickle. When removed from it, they must be well wiped, put in brown-paper bags, and then smoked the _wood_ smoke for three weeks.

We once had nearly a whole pig spoiled by its being taken to a baker's, where it was _dried_, but not smoked. When it came back it resembled very strong tallow.

In villages it is usual to send bacon and hams to be dried in the chimneys of farm-houses where wood is burnt, in the old-fashioned manner, on dogs; but if resident in or near a small town, there is always a drying-house to be met with, where we believe sawdust is used for fuel. We have had our own dried in this manner, and always found them excellent.

We used the same pickle for twenty-four pounds' weight of bacon, with the exception that we allow two pounds more of common salt, and when it is turned the second time the same quantity of salt is rubbed into it.

Some persons make a pickle of water, salt, sugar, and saltpetre, boiled together, and when cold put in the hams, etc., without any rubbing. We have never tried that way for meats that are to be dried, but can strongly recommend it for salt beef, pork, or mutton. The following is the pickle always used in our kitchen:

Three gallons of _soft_ water.
One pound of coarse sugar.
Two ounces of saltpetre.
Three pounds of common salt.

Boil together, and let it be well skimmed; then, when cold, the meat to be well wiped and put into it. It will be fit to cook in ten days, but may be kept without injury for two months, when the pickle should be reboiled and well skimmed. The meat should be covered with brine and the pan have a cover.

We have put legs of mutton into this pickle, and can assure the reader it is an excellent mode of cooking this joint; and as it is one which frequently makes its appearance at table where the family is large, it is sometimes a pleasant method of varying the dish. It is the best way of any we know of, for curing tongues; it has the great advantage of being always ready for use, and you are not fearful of the carelessness of servants, who not unfrequently forget to look to the salting-pans.

We can recommend a dish not often seen at table, and that is a sirloin of beef put into this pickle for about a fortnight. It is infinitely superior either to the round or edgebone, and certainly not so extravagant as the last-named joint.

A friend has told us that we should procure some juniper-berries to put into our ham-pickle, but there were none to be purchased in our neighborhood, and as we were quite ignorant of the flavor they might impart, we did not trouble ourselves to get them. I am fond of old proverbs, and as our hams and bacon were always good, we determined to "let well alone."

CHAPTER X1.

OUR BREAD.

Any lady who thinks of trying a country residence, should see that it possess a small brick oven, for "home-made" bread ought always to be considered indispensable in the country. We did not discover that our new home was without one till after we entered it. We were laughed at by our landlord when we mentioned our want of this convenience.

"Why!" cried he, "there is a baker's shop not five minutes walk from the house."

"Never mind," said I, "how near the baker's shop may be; we mean to have all our bread made at home. It will be, we are sure, better to do so, both on the score of health and economy."

"But I really," said the gentleman, "cannot afford to build you an oven; it would cost me $100 at the least."

At this, H., who had resided for a short time in a house where the bread was made at home, laughed, and said, "Really, Mr. L., you need not fear that we wish to put you to so much expense, and it is perhaps but fair that we should meet you half-way in the matter; so if you will find labor we will find materials: or reverse it, if you please."

Mr. L. remembered that he had in some outhouse a quantity of "fire bricks," and it was arranged that we should pay for the labor of constructing a three-peck oven. This occasioned on our part an outlay of $10, and this small sum was the source of considerable saving to us yearly.

We were more fortunate with our bread than with our butter-making, for Mary was a capital baker; our bread was always made from the best flour. We all liked it much better than bakers' bread, and it was much more nourishing. Indeed, when I was once in Kent during "hopping," and saw that the women who resided in the neighborhood always gave up half a day's work weekly for the purpose of going home to bake, I used to wonder why they did not purchase their bread from a baker in the village. I was informed by one of them to whom I put the question, "Lord, ma'am, we could not work on bakers' bread, we should be half-starved; it's got no _heart_ in it."

To a small family, perhaps, the saving might not be considered an object, but any one who has for a few months been accustomed to eat home-made bread, would be sorry to have recourse to the baker's; the loaves purchased are usually spongy the first day, and dry and harsh the second. It is not only that other ingredients than flour, yeast, and water are mixed in the dough, but it is seldom sufficiently baked; bread well made at home and baked in a brick oven for a proper time, is as good at the end of a week as it is the second day.

I have heard several persons say, "I should like home-made bread if it were baked every day, but I don't like eating stale bread four or five days out of the seven." If they stayed with us a day or two, they became convinced that bread which had been made three or four days did not deserve the epithet of "stale."

I will now proceed to show the reader how much flour was consumed in our household, consisting of thirteen persons.

We used to bake weekly twenty-eight pounds of flour, of the best quality; this produced _forty-two_ pounds of bread. I will give in the most explicit manner I can directions for making it, which I imagine any servant will be able to comprehend:

Place in a large pan twenty-eight pounds of flour; make a hole with the hand in the centre of it like a large basin, into which strain a pint of yeast from the brewer's; this must be tasted, and if too bitter a little flour sprinkled in it, and then strained directly; then pour in two quarts of water, of the temperature of 100', that is, what is called blood-heat, and stir the flour round from the bottom of the hole you have formed with the hand, till that part of the flour is quite thick and well mixed, though all the rest must remain unwetted; then sprinkle a little flour over the moist part, and cover with a cloth: this is called "sponge," and must be left half an hour to rise.

During this time the fire must be lighted in the oven with fagots, and the heat well maintained till the bread is ready to enter it. At the end of the half-hour add four quarts of water, of the same heat as the previous two quarts, and well knead the whole mass into a smooth dough. This is hard work, and requires strength to do it properly.

It must be again covered and left for one hour. In cold weather both sponge and dough must be placed on the kitchen-hearth, or it will not rise well.

Before the last water is put in, two table-spoonfuls of salt must be sprinkled over the flour.

Sometimes the flour will absorb another pint of water.

When the dough has risen, it must be made up into loaves as quickly as possible; if much handled then, the bread will be heavy.

It will require an hour and an half to bake it, if made into four-pound loaves.

While the dough is rising the oven must be emptied of the fire, the ashes swept from it, and then well wiped with a damp mop kept for the purpose. To ascertain if it is sufficiently heated, throw a little flour into it, and if it brown _directly_, it will do.

I think I have stated every particular necessary to enable a novice to make a "batch" of good bread. I will sum up the articles requisite to produce forty-two pounds of the best quality:

Flour, 28 pounds.
Water at 100', 12 or 13 pints.
Two table-spoonfuls of salt.
Yeast, 1 pint.
Bake one hour and a half.

The quantity made was ten and a half quarterns, or four-pound loaves; and, as I have said, supplied our family of thirteen persons for the week. For the same number, when we were residing in town, the baker used to leave _thirteen_ quarterns weekly.

One day, in the country, when, from the accidental absence of the bread-maker, we had to be supplied from the baker, we were surprised to hear that at the nursery-breakfast the children (six) and nurse consumed more than a two-pound loaf, and then were complaining of being "so hungry" two hours after. I thought of the words of the Kentish hopper, "that there was no heart in bakers' bread."

The servant who has the management of the oven should be instructed to take care that the wood-ashes are not thrown into the dust-hole with the ashes from the grates. They are always valuable in the country; and, as I have mentioned, the wooden articles used in the dairy should always be scrubbed with them. Should the water which is used in the house be hard, and any washing done at home, they should be place in a coarse cloth over a tub, and water poured over them several times to make lye, which softens the water, and saves soap much more than soda, and is likewise better for the linen.

The brick oven will often prove a source of great convenience, independent of bread-making. It is just the size to bake hams or roasting pigs, and will, when dinner-parties are given, frequently prove much more useful to the cook than an extra fire.

The fagots are sold by the hundred, and the price is usually $6 25 for that quantity.