DIRECTIONS FOR CURING HAM OR BACON.

Ham or bacon, however well cured, will never be good unless the pork of
which it is made has been properly fed. The hogs should be well
fattened on corn, and fed with it about eight weeks, allowing ten
bushels to each hog. They are best for curing when from two to four
years old, and should not weigh more than one hundred and fifty or one
hundred and sixty pounds. The first four weeks they may be fed on mush,
or on Indian meal moistened with water; the remaining four on corn
unground; giving them always as much as they will eat. Soap-suds may be
given to them three or four times a week; or oftener if convenient.

When killed and cut up, begin immediately to salt them. Rub the outside
of each ham with a tea-spoonful of powdered saltpetre, and the inside
with a tea-spoonful of cayenne pepper. Having mixed together brown
sugar and fine salt, in the proportion of a pound and a half of brown
sugar to a quart of salt, rub the pork well with it. This quantity of
sugar and salt will be sufficient for fifty pounds of meat. Have ready
some large tubs, the bottoms sprinkled with salt, and lay the meat in
the tubs with the skin downward. Put plenty of salt between each layer
of meat. After it has lain eight days, take it out and wipe off all the
salt, and wash the tubs. Make a pickle of soft water, equal quantities
of salt and molasses, and a little saltpetre; allowing four ounces of
saltpetre to two quarts of molasses and two quarts of salt, which is
the proportion for fifty pounds of meat. The pickle must be strong
enough to bear up an egg. Boil and skim it; and when it is cold, pour
it over the meat, which must be turned every day and basted with the
pickle. The hams should remain in the pickle at least four weeks; the
shoulders and middlings of the bacon three weeks; and the jowls two
weeks. They should then be taken out and smoked. Having washed off the
pickle, before you smoke the meat, bury it, while wet, in a tub of
bran. This will form a crust over it, and prevent evaporation of the
juices. Let the smoke-house be ready to receive the meat immediately.
Take it out of the tub after it has lain half an hour, and rub the bran
evenly over it. Then hang it up to smoke with the small end downwards.
The smoke-house should be dark and cool, and should stand alone, for
the heat occasioned by an adjoining—building may spoil the meat, or
produce insects. Keep up a good smoke all day, but have no blaze.
Hickory is the best wood for a smoke-house fire, In three or four weeks
the meat will be sufficiently smoked, and fit for use. During the
process it should be occasionally taken down, examined, and hung up
again. The best way of keeping hams is to wrap them in paper, or, to
sew them in coarse cloths (which should be white-washed) and bury them
in a barrel of hickory ashes. The ashes must be frequently changed.

An old ham will require longer to soak, and longer to boil than a new
one.

Tongues may be cured in the above manner.