Pork

“ The alterations latterly effected in the breeds of swine have tended materially to improve pork, and to render it more sought for and valued. We can recall to mind when the thought of pork was associated in our minds with visions of coarse-grained meat and oily fat, and with forebodings of a fit of indigestion. Nothing could tend more effectually to banish such fancies than a sight and taste of the small, fine-grained joints, delicate as poultry, and of excellent flavor, which have taken the place of those ungainly legs and Brobdignagian loins and hands of "olden times." ”

“ A pound of pork is quite enough for a quart of beans, and that is a large dinner for a common family. The rind of the pork should be slashed. Pieces of pork alternately fat and lean, are the most suitable; the cheeks are the best. A little pepper sprinkled among the beans, when they are placed in the bean-pot, will render them less unhealthy. They should be just covered with water, when put into the oven; and the pork should be sunk a little below the surface of the beans. ”

“ Cut two or three pounds of lean fresh pork into strips as long and as wide as your middle finger. Line a buttered dish with puff-paste; put in a layer of pork seasoned with pepper, salt, and nutmeg or mace; next a layer of juicy apples, sliced and covered with about an ounce of white sugar; then more pork, and so on until you are ready for the paste cover, when pour in half a pint of sweet cider or wine, and stick bits of butter all over the top. Cover with a thick lid of puff-paste, cut a slit in the top, brush over with beaten egg, and bake an hour and a half. ”

“ Slice half a pound of fat salt pork very thin and bind with soft strings over the breasts and upper parts of the bodies. Lay in a dripping-pan; pour in a cup of boiling water, and roast one hour in a good oven, basting often. Then clip the strings, lay the pork in the pan; dredge the chickens with flour, and, as this colors, baste once with butter, and twice afterwards with gravy. When the chickens are done to a fine brown, lay upon a hot dish with the pork about them. Strain and skim the gravy, pepper it, thicken with a little browned flour and serve in a boat. ”

“ Dairy fed pork is the best. To judge of pork, pinch the lean; and if young and good, it will easily part. If the rind is tough, thick, and cannot easily be impressed with the finger, it is old. A thin rind denotes a good quality in general. When fresh, the meat will be smooth and cool: if clammy, it is tainted. What is called in some places measly pork, is very unwholesome; and may be known by the fat being full of kernels, which in good pork is never the case. Bacon hogs and porkers are differently cut up. Hogs are kept to a larger size ”

“ But neither beef nor mutton require to be so well done as pork, lamb, and veal.—Pork, in particular, requires to be thoroughly done. It must be basted with salt and water; and the skin or rind of the leg, loin, and spare-rib, must be scored, with a sharp knife, after it has been some time at the fire, to make it eat the better. Geese, pigs, and young pork, require a brisk fire, and should be turned quickly.
Great care should be taken in spitting the meat, that the prime part of the joint be not injured:—to balance it on the spit, cook-holds and loaded skewers are very handy. ”

“ Pork.—The best kind of pork is fresh and pinkish in color, and the fat is firm and white. The second quality has rather hard, red flesh, and yellowish fat. The poorest kind has dark, coarse grained meat, soft fat, and discoloured kidneys. The flesh of stale pork is moist and clammy, and its smell betrays its condition. Measly pork has little kernels in the fat, and is unhealthy and dangerous food. ”

“ They must be cut thin; the coals must be bright and hot; and the meat turned very often. Serve on a hot platter.
Fried Pork.—For frying, pork should not be cut [Pg 280] over a half an inch thick: Cook slowly from forty minutes to an hour, with the pan closely covered, to keep in the steam. Pork requires a long, slow process to develop its flavor and tenderness. Nearly everyone cooks it too fast, and for too short a time. When thoroughly steamed and nicely seasoned with salt, pepper, sage and a little onion, well fed pork is as toothsome and dainty as turkey. ”

“ The various chapters treat successively of the following, among other branches of the art of pork [Pg vi] making: Possibilities of profit in home curing and marketing pork; finishing off hogs for bacon; class of rations best adapted, flesh and fat forming foods; best methods of slaughtering hogs, with necessary adjuncts for this preliminary work; scalding and scraping; the construction of vats; dressing the carcass; cooling and cutting up the meat; best disposition of the offal; the making of sausage and scrapple; success in producing a fine quality of lard and the proper care of it. ”

“ To be at any time fit for table, pork must be perfectly sweet, and thoroughly cooked; great attention also should be given to it when it is in pickle, for if any part of it be long exposed to the air, without being turned into, or well and frequently basted with the brine, it will often become tainted during the process of curing it.
TO MELT LARD. Strip the skin from the inside fat of a freshly killed and well-fed pig; slice it small and thin; put it into a new or well-scalded jar, set it into a pan of boiling water, and let it simmer over a clear fire. ”

“ TO CHOOSE PORK. This meat is so proverbially, and we believe even dangerously unwholesome when ill fed, or in any degree diseased, that its quality should be closely examined before it is purchased. When not home-reared, it should be bought if possible of some respectable farmer or miller, unless the butcher who supplies it can be perfectly relied on. Both the fat and lean should be very white, and the latter finely grained; the rind should be thin, smooth, and cool to the touch; if it be clammy, the pork is stale, and should be at once rejected ”

“ In the second place, pork is one of the chief meat products of the United States,—the industry being one of great magnitude, and pork being a common article of diet among all classes of people. Further than this, the data indicate the general character of fresh meat, and illustrate as well as that of any of the typical animals the nutritive value and properties of flesh. The study of pork, therefore, may be regarded as a typical study of meat products. ”

“ If you hear anyone speak well of pork, that person is a sensualist at heart. I sigh continually for pork. The higher order of apes, including man, live in trees and on fruits that grow nearer to Heaven than any other thing. Cows and sheep and low types of man and brutes of moderate grossness eat things they find on the earth, such as grass and corn, and hares and deer and goats, but it is only pigs and men of the lowest types that burrow into the ground for food. ”

“ There might have been more pork on the knucklebone, - which knucklebone the carver at the cook’s shop had assuredly not forgotten in carving for previous customers - but there was no stint of seasoning, and that is an accessory dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly cheating the sense of taste. The pease pudding, too, the gravy and mustard, like the Eastern rose in respect of the nightingale, if they were not absolutely pork, had lived near it ”

“ Take the fillet or a leg of pork, and cut it into dice work, with some of the fleak of the pork cut in the same form, season the meat with cloves, mace and pepper, a handful of sage fine minced, with a handful of salt; mingle all together, fill the guts and hang them in the air, and boil them when you spend them. These Links will serve to stew with divers kinds of meats. ”

“ Pork, although not so much used in the fresh state as beef, mutton, lamb, etc., is extensively employed in the preparation of food. It is cut somewhat like mutton, but into more parts. Fresh young pork should be firm; the fat white, the lean a pale reddish color and the skin white and clear. When the fat is yellow and soft the pork is not of the best quality. After pork has been salted, if it is corn-fed, the fat will be of a delicate pinkish shade. When hogs weighing three and four hundred pounds are killed, the fat will not be very firm, particularly if they are not fed on corn. ”

“ Of Pork, when fine, the rind is thin; if you and well-fed, the lean breaks on being pinched, all the fat is white. The lean is also smooth and dry. Of old pork the rind is thick and tough. Small greasy lumps and kernels mixed with the fat is sign of measly pork. ”

“ Fresh pork should be used sparingly. Its use should be confined to the winter months. Pork should be thoroughly cooked. It sometimes contains organisms which may produce serious results, if not destroyed in the cooking. Pork is made more wholesome by curing, salting, and smoking. ”

“ Method.—As pork does not keep long without being salted, cut it into pieces of a suitable size as soon as the pig is cold. Rub the pieces of pork well with salt, put them into a pan with a sprinkling of it between each piece, and as it dissolves on the top, sprinkle on more. Lay a coarse cloth over the pan, and over it a board, and place a weight on the board, to keep the pork down in the brine. If the air be excluded, it will continue good for nearly 2 years. ”

“ Make a thick batter of corn meal and flour, cut a few slices of pork and fry until the fat is fried out; cut a few more slices, dip them in the batter, and drop them in the bubbling fat, seasoning with salt and pepper; cook until light brown, and eat while hot. ”

“ Commonly, by the time the bed is made, or within fifteen or twenty minutes, the water boils, the pork is fried, and supper is ready. We eat this sitting on the ground, or a stump, if there is any, around a large piece of birch bark for a table, each holding a dipper in one hand and a piece of ship-bread or fried pork in the other, frequently making a pass with his hand, or thrusting his head into the smoke, to avoid the mosquitoes. ”

“ Macedonian Pork.—Choose, among a number of large and fine sucking pigs, the one which appears to you the most worthy of the culinary sacrifice. Draw it by the upper part; clean it well, and fill it with chicken sausages chopped small, the flesh of thrushes, ortolans, and pork; add Lucanian sausages, dates without stones, raisins, and afterwards, mallow, beet, leeks, parsley, coriander, whole pepper, and pine nuts; add eggs, and a good quantity of well-peppered gravy. Bake it, having previously scored the back of the animal, so that it may be basted with its own gravy. ”

“ For the meat, three or four pounds of your favorite cut of corned beef, which has not been in the brine too long, and the same amount of fresh pork, the foot and lower part of the leg. This piece of pork you will find a great improvement, and the vegetables need the fat, as no butter is used in their preparation for the table. For vegetables, you need cabbage, turnips, carrots, parsnips, beets, and potatoes. ”

“ Pork—fresh and salted, bacon and ham—is the natural and invariable food of the settler. Beef and mutton are too valuable as marketable steers, dairy cattle, and wool-growers, and are not so conveniently prepared into keeping forms; hence the pigs he breeds on his clearings are looked upon by the bush-farmer as the regular source whence to draw his household provision in the meat way. ”

“ Relevés of fresh pork are only served at family and bourgeois meals. They are always roasts and allow of all the dry or fresh vegetable garnishes, as well as the various vegetable purées, and the pastes, such as macaroni, noodles, polenta, gnochi, &c. I shall, therefore, give only a few recipes, and shall select Fresh Neck of Pork as the typical joint. ”

“ Cut a pound of salt pork into strips long enough to reach from top to bottom of the beef—make incisions in it with a thin, long-bladed knife, and thrust these in closely together. Fill the hole from which the bone was taken with a force-meat of minced pork and crumbs, highly spiced. Put the meat thus prepared in a deep earthenware dish, and rub well into it a mixture of one cup of vinegar, a teaspoonful of mixed cloves and allspice, a teaspoonful of salt, and the same of made mustard; a tablespoonful of sugar and a bunch of sweet herbs minced, with as much pepper as salt. ”

“ Cut fat, raw salt pork into strips a finger long and a quarter of an inch thick and wide.
In half an hour’s time take the liver from the water, spread it out on a clean dry cloth, lay another cloth over the slices and pat gently to dry them thoroughly. Make holes an inch apart in the liver with a pen-knife or [61] sharp skewer, and stick in the pork strips. They should protrude an equal distance on both sides.
As fast as they are ready, lay them in a clean, warm (not hot) frying-pan. ”

“ Port Chops. 4. Pork Shoulder 5. Belly 6. Head 7. Snout. 8. Shanks. 9. Feet.
Boiled, Fried and Salted Pork.
Also recipes for utilizing left-over pork.
Good pork from well fed yearlings is tender, light and not too fat. The fat or lard must be white, the hide light. Inferior pork has a yellow hide, smeary lard and very fat, dark meat.
Suckling pig is considered a delicacy in the kitchen. It is usually 2 or 3 weeks old.
Best Pieces for Roasts.
The leg, the pork loin, the slightly smoked rib piece, the fillets.
Small Pieces for Frying.
The cutlets, the fillets and ham slices. ”

“ Exclusive of bacon, hams, &c., great is the demand for fresh pork throughout our island—much greater, indeed, than formerly, and this is in some measure owing to the improvement of our breeds; our porkers are small-sized, with fine-grained delicate flesh, and firm fat, sufficiently but not superabundantly laid on, and the skin is thin and clear; the limbs are round and fine-boned. Such is the country-fed pork to be seen in London and in other towns. ”