_ CHAPTER XVIII. THE CURING OF PORK
In the good old times bacon curing was carried on in the large majority of farm-houses as well as in many houses in the country districts, not only where there were conveniences for the keeping of pigs, but many householders were in the habit of buying carcases of pork from their neighbours and curing the major portion for the following year's supply of cured meats. Even the better class labourers would kill and cure it so that as long as it lasted they had on hand a supply of most nutritious and suitable food. Unfortunately a great change has taken place of late years; this convenient and profitable plan has been superseded. The causes may have been many; amongst them, the importation of immense quantities of salt pork of very inferior quality at very low prices from the United States; the change in the public taste which is now for mild cured and lean bacon from young pigs, instead of the more heavily salted meats from older and fatter pigs; the great decrease in the number of pigs kept by cottagers and others in urban districts through the operation of the so-called sanitary regulations; and probably from the different style of living, which may or may not be an improvement, amongst the residents in country districts.
It may be that one of the many changes which have been brought about by, and which will also follow, the war will be a return to the more simple and less luxurious manner of living. It is certain that a more economical system will have to be followed, and one of the means of effecting this may be a return to the keeping of pigs during their growing stage on the house and garden refuse, and then when the pigs have been fattened, by the killing and curing of the carcase for home consumption.
Much has been written during recent years about the folly of allowing so many millions of sovereigns to go out of the country in payment for the vast weight of bacon, hams, and lard which we import from foreign countries. Residents in the country have been blamed by town residents and literary men for their alleged want of enterprise in not breeding and fattening the few extra million pigs which would furnish an amount of pig produce equal to that imported, and thus, as they declare, save the country that outlay which is a dead loss to these islands.
It may at once be frankly admitted that a very considerable increase in the number of our pig population is possible without any very greatly extended cost of food, but when it is contended that farmers and even cottagers are grossly neglectful in not producing sufficient pork and its products for the use of the whole of the population of these islands, an injustice is done, as the breeding and feeding of pigs is a business calling, not a philanthropical pursuit. Farmers and cottagers are like other manufacturers of necessary articles; they produce in order to live, and they cease to manufacture an article when its production ceases to repay them for their outlay and trouble. They must of necessity do so, or they come to grief and are unable to carry on their farms or businesses.
It matters not what the cause be for the ability of the foreigner to produce and land on our markets articles cheaper than we can afford to offer them at, the result is the same--the home production is automatically reduced. There are many causes which have helped to render it possible for foreigners to supply us with a certain proportion of the pork and bacon which we require at a less cost than our home breeder and feeders of pigs can supply it. These include help to the farmers from the Governments of certain countries such as Denmark, where assistance is given in the purchase of pure bred pigs for the improvement of the native pigs, in the reduced railway and other rates on the transit of pigs, foods, and bacon, in the provision of certain foods, and in carrying out experiments in order to show how they may be utilised in the best manner. Stud farms have also been established from which pure bred boars are distributed, whilst the whole industry of pig breeding and bacon curing is carried on under the supervision and with the advice of many Government officials appointed for the purpose. The intrinsic value of this assistance is perceptible, as in no other country are pig-keeping and bacon curing carried on with greater monetary success than in Denmark.
It is also asserted that the general system of farming in Denmark has also contributed very largely to the phenomenal prosperity of the pig industry, in that a very large proportion of the land is owned and farmed by comparatively small farmers, men who have a direct interest in the improvement of the land, and who with their families perform the major portion of the work on the land and in attendance on the stock. The land is almost certain to be well managed and the stock to receive the best possible attention with, comparatively speaking, little cost as to labour. The animals on the farm are likely to be of a higher grade and the returns from them of an increased character, than when strangers and disinterested hired labour attend and feeds them.
Another of the great advantages possessed by some of our foreign competitors is the very much better supply of feeding stuffs and their very considerably lower cost. Take the United States, for instance, the enormous supply of maize alone enables American pigmen to manufacture pork at a cost which enables the packers to land bacon, hams, and lard on the British shores which our home pig producers cannot approach. Although it cannot be said that the cost of labour is less in the States than in England, yet there are some countries from which we import pork products where the labour is far more plentiful and less costly. In the future the allowance for labour will have to be on a more liberal scale than hitherto when estimating the cost of producing pork, unless the number of persons owning and occupying small holdings is greatly increased.
It has been stated that our home producers of pork and bacon will obtain a considerable advantage in the future in that the freight on the imported meats will be so much higher. It is most probable that this will increase the expense of landing bacon, etc., on our markets; on the other hand, as we import so large a proportion of the pig fattening foods, the cost of food will most likely be increased to quite the same if not to a greater extent. The only plan to reduce this extra expense will be to lessen the outlay on imported foods by paying more attention to the growth of various foods suitable for pigs, attending more carefully to our pigs and feeding them on common-sense lines. In these particulars there is room for much improvement in many piggeries.
By reducing the cost of the production of pork and by the more general adoption of the system of home curing we shall not only obtain our bacon at less cost, but we shall have a far greater amount of the finest quality of bacon and hams generally available. We imagine that the reader of the earlier portion of this book will experience little difficulty in producing fine quality pork at a minimum cost--it will then remain to cure and dry it properly.
The fattened pig should not be fed for some twenty-four hours before it is killed; after slaughter the carcase should remain hanging until it is thoroughly cooled. The manner of cutting up will depend on the custom in the particular district. In some parts of the country the pig is split down, the head, feet, and tail taken off, the leaf and kidneys and the skirt taken out, the loin and the crop with a certain proportion of the lean cut off, and in some cases the shoulder blade is drawn; after the necessary trimming a Wiltshire side remains.
In other districts the ham and the shoulder are cut off and the side is converted into a middle, a ham and a shoulder or fore-ham. The jowls are taken off the head and salted with the bacon and hams. The upper part of the head, or, as it is commonly termed, the scorf, is usually used with the feet in the manufacture of brawn, or, as it is sometimes called, pork cheese--presumably from its being cooled in a form, and then turned out on to the dish on which it is served at table.
The first operation in curing is to distribute a small quantity of salt all over the meat to be cured. If allowed to remain about forty-eight hours the blood remaining in the meat will have become dissolved, and will have exuded from the carcase. This liquid should be thrown away. A mixture in the proportion of 4 lbs. salt, 1 lb. coarse brown sugar, 1 oz. saltpetre, 1/4 oz. bay salt, and 1/4 oz. salt prunell should be prepared, and a portion of it be applied to all parts of the meat and particularly in the pocket hole, if the shoulder blade has been drawn. This should be continued for from twenty to thirty days, according to the thickness of the meat and the degree of saltness desired. In one or two districts of a limited area it is usual to rub the meat somewhat violently with a large pebble when applying the salt mixture, the alleged object being to rub in the salt; but for this there is not the slightest necessity as the result of the rubbing is nil, since the salt will penetrate the meat equally as well without the manipulation as with it. The principal point is to secure the distribution of the salt to every part of the meat so that the salt can penetrate and preserve it.
When sufficiently cured the meat should be hung up and dried. If it be desired to have it smoked this is best done at the village bakery or smoke drying house. Smoking of hams and bacon is possible on a small scale with the aid of a smoke oven such as supplied by Messrs. Douglas and Sons of Putney, but it is, as a rule, cheaper and less troublesome to send the meat to the village smoking house. It will be advisable to brand or otherwise mark each piece of cured meat sent to be smoked, as the return of the same pieces is thus assured.
Where the home curing of bacon and hams is followed, this is best carried out from the middle of October to the end of March; if it be attempted earlier or later a cold chamber is necessary.
The manufacture of salt pork is carried on all the year through as the meat is usually kept in the brine, where it will keep perfectly good for a considerable time providing it is perfectly sweet when first placed in the brine. To secure this it is advisable to have the pig killed in the evening, covered over with a cloth to prevent the flies approaching it, and hanging it in a cool place so that all the natural heat has escaped ere it is cut up and placed in the pickle pot. It may be advisable to note that the last is only possible with a small pig during the hot weather. In the mere salting of pork it is usual to use only salt and saltpetre. The use of sugar should be avoided in the summer, as its use is likely to result in fermentation in hot weather.
There are two other points in connection with bacon curing on which a change of opinion has taken place, or is taking place. These are the cause of what are called in the trade "seedy bellies," and the effect on the bacon of the female fat pig being in a state of [oe]strum when it is slaughtered. Until quite recently the first of these troubles, and it is a most serious one to the trade, was generally considered to be due to the second. It was believed by curers that the slight inflammation noticeable in the mammary glands of the female pig when she is in heat resulted in these so-called "seedy bellies" if the pig was in that condition when she was slaughtered. This belief may have been either the cause or the result, or both, of the common saying that the meat of a sow pig killed when it was in heat will not take the salt properly, and that it is therefore advisable to wait until this natural condition has passed away before the pig is slaughtered. This contention has been one of the arguments used when the spaying of sow pigs has been advocated. Of late years comparatively few sow pigs have been spayed, so that the unspayed fat pigs have been nearly as numerous as those male pigs which have been castrated, and as the sow pigs come in heat each three weeks, and continue so for from three to five days, a very considerable proportion of them must be in heat when they are slaughtered at the large bacon-curing factories, without any loss resulting. We may, therefore, assume that it matters little whether the pig be in heat or not when it is slaughtered unless the seedy bellies result.
On this point also the verdict is against the common belief, as Messrs. Mackenzie and Marsh have carried out a series of investigations at Cambridge which clearly proved that seedy bellies were equally as common when the sow pigs were not in heat and when they were; but that the discoloration which resembles numbers of small spots of colour varying from dark blue to light red in the mammary glands is merely an excess of pigment, the darker shade being common in pigs with dark coloured hair and skin such as the Large Blacks, Berkshires, etc., and the lighter shade in pigs of the Tamworth breed. In the bacon manufactured from pigs with a white skin and white hair there is no discoloration or seedy bellies.
Although it has been generally considered by bacon curers that pigs of a white colour were preferable for their trade, and this to such an extent that some of the bacon curers in Ireland will pay a slightly higher price for a pig with a white skin, the preference was generally considered to be due to the more presentable appearance of a side of bacon from a white than from a black pig; it would appear that in the future a still greater preference will be observable when it becomes generally known that the bacon made from white pigs is free from seedy bellies.
[THE END]
Sanders Spencer's Book: Pig: Breeding, Rearing, and Marketing
_