Cassell's dictionary of cookery

[ the sugar ought not to be under one-third of ' the weight of the salt. M. Ude, in his directions for making hams, employs equal weights of sugar and salt ; and others use twice as much sugar as salt. In the Journal des Connaissances Usuelles, the following mode of making mutton hams is given, and it might, perhaps, be followed with great advantage as a general process for preserving meat : — The mutton must be fat. Two oimces of sugar must be mixed with one ounce of common salt and half a spoonful of saltpetre. The meat is to be rubbed with this, and then placed in a tureen. It must be beaten and turned twice a day during three consecutive days, and the scum which comes from the meat having been taken off, it is to be wiped, and again rubbed with the mixture of sugar, salt, and saltpetre, in the same proportions as before. The next day it should be again beaten, and the two operations ought to be repeated alternately during ten days, care being taken to turn the meat each time. It must be exposed to smoke for ten days. Hams thus prepared are generally eaten cold. There can be little doubt that this mode of preserving, if applied generally, would be found an excellent one ; and it will be readily admitted that any process which preserves meat with so small a quantity of salt is valuable. It is a common opinion that salting greatly impairs the nutritivencss of meat; and in proof the fact is adduced that all the juices of the flesh run out and form brine. I believe that the nutritive qualities are scarcely impaired by a few days' salting, notwithstanding the great quantity of gravy-like juice which pours out. But there can be little doubt that the action of long-continued salt is to corrugate and harden the fibre, to render it somewhat less easily digestible, and probably to lessen its nutritiveness. AH meats are not rendered equally salt or hard by exposure to the action of salt during the same time. Pork becomes much less salt than beef. For a comparison, I caused a lap of pork and a lap of beef to be salted as nearly as possible in the same manner. They were kept for three months, at the end of which time the pork was just as it ought to be, but the beef was, to my taste, uneatable: it had taken up so much of the salt. It is on this account that pork is preferred for long voyages : it takes up less salt than other meats, and with that smaller portion it keeps as well. I believe there is another reason. Pigs that are purchased for sea-store are never fed \with the same care, abundance, and cleanliness as those intended for home consumption: bad feeding, filth, and ill-usage are highly detrimental to pigs, their flesh proves soft, rank, and less agreeable. But such pork is liable to a much greater objection — it is less wholesome ; it is apt for a few hours to more or less derange the digestive organs, and to produce considerable disturbance in weakly constitutions. Such unwholesome pork is greatly improved by beingkept a month in salt; and that it maj- be totally cured of all noxious quality, the time should be extended to three months. Bad pork will often make tolerable bacon, but so far SAL ( 823 ) SAN