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To Pickle Beef Pork, etc.
Appears in
By David Bowers
Published 2014
Cut your beef or pork into what size you please put into salt and water for twenty four hours then take it out and drain and wipe it, make a pickle strong enough to bear one egg of soft water, bay salt, common salt and salt petre and brown sugar boil and scum it and when it is cold pour it on your meat which must not be packed too close, this does ham or tongues.
—from an 18th century Irish cookbook manuscript
An Irish butcher shop is a glorious place—there’s a huge turnover, as you might imagine in such a land of carnivores—and in country butcher shops, the proprietor very often is raising his own animals and overseeing their slaughter. It’s hard to get much more local than that, and it shows in the quality of the products. In Dublin, Cork, and larger towns, the bigger butcher shops frequently make their own sausages and cure their own rashers and bacon.