1903 The still-room by C. Roundell

The StilLRoom

— Weigh each flitch, and allow

Pickle for Bacon,

for stone of meat weighs eight pounds) one pound of salt, two ounces of bay-salt, two ounces of saltpetre, and three ounces of coarse brown sugar. Sprinkle the flitches with salt, and drain them for twenty-four hours. Mix the salt, bay-salt, saltpetre, and sugar thoroughly together, and rub all well into the flitches, rubbing the ends as well as the sides. Do this every day for a month. Then hang up the flitches to dry, sewing a bag of coarse muslin over each. [Do not use paper, as it breaks in damp weather. Muslin is a far better protector from the flies, which are always more partial to salt meat than to any other.] The flitch, from the Old English word, is one side of the pig. To cure Pig^s Cheeks. — Do not use any saltpetre, but clear the two cheeks well, take out the bones, rub well with common salt, let the cheeks drain, and next day rub them again with salt, using a fresh supply. Then mix four ounces of salt with five ounces of coarse browm sugar, cover the cheeks with this mixture, and turn them every day. They will be sufficiently cured in twelve days. If saltpetre is used the cheeks will be hard. To boil a Ham. — The great point in boiling a ham is to boil it as slowly as possible. If a ham is small and rather fresh, it will need soaking in cold water for only eighteen hours before it is boiled ; but as a rule a ham should be soaked for forty-eight hours, the water being changed three or even four 28 every stone (a