Tons of ham and bacon are yearly wasted throughout the country for want of proper attention and judgment, in allowing the fat to get rancid. Instead of hanging them up, as is the custom, to a low ceiling, in every cottage or farmer’s kitchen, the consequence of which is, that the continual heat turns the fat and flesh of such a quadruped as dry as a mummy, while, by the following simple rules, they would keep equally as long without undergoing this antique Egyptian process.
To prove to you the truth of my remarks—about six months ago, I was on a visit to our excellent friend, William Tucker, Esq., of Coriton Park, near Axminster, Devon, when all the neighbourhood was searched to get a couple of home-cured country hams; however, no such thing was to be found; every one of them bought were dried to chips. The fat of the first one we operated on, when sawn in two, (for we could not cut it in the ordinary way,) was of a blackish yellow, and the meat of the same colour as rotten wood, only much harder. Being anxious to see the person who had so effectively “preserved” this ham, a very natty, clean old woman was brought to me; and on showing her the bone, and asking her for the receipt, she said she did not know how it was done, but her son Thomas did, and she knew he would be glad to give me the receipt, to which proposition I strongly objected, at the same time writing down the following receipt, which she said her son would doubtless follow.
