To Cure Bacon

Ingredients

• Hogs
• 1 large tablespoon Saltpetre
• Salt
• Hickory ashes

Instructions

1. Select hogs weighing no more than 150–160 pounds and feed them corn for at least six weeks before slaughter. Keep the distance to market as short as possible to preserve the flesh.
2. Salt the meat while it is still warm, before it cools. Remove the chine or backbone from neck to tail. Cut the hams, shoulders, and middlings. Remove the ribs from the shoulders and the leaf fat from the hams. Cut the jowl or chop from the head and remove the feet just above the knee joint; set aside the ears and nose in cold water for souse.
3. Rub a large tablespoon of saltpetre on the inside of each ham for some minutes, then rub both sides well with salt. Sprinkle the bottom of the tub with salt and lay the hams skin-side down, putting a good deal of salt between each layer. Salt the shoulders and middlings in the same manner, using less saltpetre. Salt the jowls as well.
4. After two weeks in salt, hang the jowls to smoke. At the end of three weeks, hang the shoulders and middlings. At the end of four weeks, hang the hams. Do not leave meat in salt longer than specified, as this will harden it by drawing off the juices. Hang hams and shoulders with the hocks down to preserve the juices.
5. Make a good smoke every morning, taking care not to have a blaze. The smoke-house should stand alone, as additional heat will spoil the meat. During hot weather, beginning the first of April, occasionally take down the meat, examine it, rub it with hickory ashes, and hang it up again.
6. To cook: boil bacon in a large quantity of water. A ham is done sufficiently when the bone on the under part comes off with ease. New bacon requires much longer boiling than old bacon.