CURING HAMS (1904)
The Blue Grass Cook Book
Compiled by Minnie C. Fox (1904)
COL. WM. RHODES ESTILL'S RECIPE FOR CURING HAMS
Kill your hogs when the wind is from the north-west.
The night before you salt the meat take a string of red pepper and make a strong tea. (Let it remain on the stove over night.)
Put in the tea 2 heaping tablespoons of saltpetre to every 2 gallons. Take this strong tea and pour on the salt.
Salt the meat lightly the first time to run off the blood.
Let the meat lie packed 3 days--longer, if the weather is very cold.
Then overhaul the meat and put 1 teaspoon of pulverized saltpetre on the flesh side of each ham and rub in well.
Then rub with molasses mixed with salt. Pack close for 10 days.
After this overhaul again, rubbing each piece, and pack close again.
Hang the meat in 3 weeks from the time the hogs were killed.
Before hanging, wash each piece in warm water, and while wet roll in hickory ashes.
Then smoke with green hickory wood, and tie up in cotton bags in February.
This cookbook may also be found on the Michigan State University website:
'Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project'
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/
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