To every four gallons of water allow four pounds of fine salt, two ounces of saltpetre, three pounds of brown sugar, and two quarts of West India molasses. Boil the whole together, stirring it well, and skimming it after stirring. When clear, let it cool. The meat being clean and dry, rub it all over with ground red pepper. Then put as much meat into the pickling-tub as can be very well covered by the brine, which must be poured on cold. Let it remain six weeks in the pickle, (carefully taking off the scum,) and turning each piece every day. Afterwards, hang it till it is dry outside, and then smoke it well for a fortnight, hanging it high above the fire with the large end downward. The fire in the smoke-house should be steadily kept up all the time. Hickory or oak is the best wood for this purpose. On no account use pine, cedar, spruce, or hemlock. They will communicate to the meat a strong taste of turpentine, and render it uneatable. A fire made of corn-cobs is excellent for smoking meat, and they should be saved for that purpose. When the meat is smoked, rub it all over with ground pepper to prevent insects, and sew up all the pieces in new cotton cloths, coarse and thick, and then white-wash them. We have seen ham-covers, painted with flowers and gilded. Since California, gilding pervades the land.

This pickle will be found excellent for hams, bacon, tongues, or beef. Meat for pickling must be very fresh, and of excellent quality. Before sewing it up in covers see that it is free from insects. If to go to sea, pack in boxes of powdered charcoal for a long voyage. For a short one, barrels of wood-ashes will do.

TO CURE HAMS.—

To make good hams the pork must be of the best quality. No animal tastes so much of its food as the pig. In America, we consider a pig "killed off the slop" as unfit to eat; and so he is. All our pigs are kept up in a pen, and fattened with Indian corn, or corn meal, for several weeks previous to killing. A hundred pounds of corn meal, (mixed with water to about the consistency of very thick mush,) is said to be equal in fattening pigs to two hundred pounds of dry-shelled corn. They should be kept up, and well fed for eight weeks; and occasionally, in the country, where such fruits are superabundant, the pigs should have a regale of melons, peaches, &c. This we have seen, and the pork was, of course, very fine. The hams or hind-quarters are considered the most valuable part of the animal. They are cured in various modes. But the Newbold receipt has hitherto been the most popular. Mr. Newbold was a Pennsylvania farmer. The following directions, we believe, are authentic.

For one hundred pounds of fine pork, take seven pounds of coarse salt, five pounds of brown sugar, two ounces of saltpetre, half an ounce of pearlash, and four gallons of water. Boil all together, and skim the pickle when cold. Pour it on the meat. Let hams or tongues remain in the pickling-tub eight weeks. Before it is smoked, hang it up and dry it two or three days. Three weeks will be sufficient for pickling beef. Previous to sewing the hams in cases, rub them all over with ground black pepper.

Soap-suds given frequently to pigs, when kept up to fatten, will greatly promote their health.

BOILED HAM.—

Having soaked a fine ham from early in the evening till near bed-time, putting it into warm water, and changing that water about ten or eleven o'clock—wash and brush it well in the morning, and trim it so as to look nicely all over. Lay at the bottom of the ham-boiler a bed of nice fresh hay, which will greatly improve the flavor. Let the hock bone be sawed off short. A long shank bone looks very awkward. Place the ham upon the hay—pour in plenty of cold water, and keep it simmering very slowly an hour before you allow it to boil. Then increase the heat gradually, and keep the ham boiling steadily for four, five, or six hours, according to its size and age. An old ham requires more soaking and boiling than a new one. Skim it frequently after the boiling begins. It will be much improved by transferring it to a spit, (having taken off the whole skin,) and roasting the ham, for the last two or three hours, basting it with its own essence. Save the skin to cover the cold ham, and keep it fresh. Before it goes to table cover the ham with grated bread-crumbs, sifted on so as to form a slight crust.

If the ham is to be eaten cold, and is intended for company, brush it all over with beaten yolk of egg. Then dredge on sufficient grated crumbs to form a crust half an inch thick, and finish by going all over it with cream. Set it to brown in an oven, or put it on the spit of a roaster. When cold, this glazing will be found surpassingly fine. Decorate the hock with white paper, handsomely cut, or with a bunch of flowers cut out of vegetables.

Carve a ham in very thin slices—if cut thick, they have not the same taste, besides looking ungenteelly.

BAKED HAM.—

For baking, take a small ham, or part of a large one, trimmed and made of good shape, cutting away whatever looks unsightly. Have the bone sawed off at the knuckle, or end of the hock. The evening previous to cooking, lay the ham in soak in a large pan of hot water. At bed-time pour off the water, and renew it. Keep it closely covered all night. In the morning wash and brush it well. Make a coarse paste of coarse flour mixed with water only, and roll it out about an inch thick. Line a clean iron bake-oven with this, and put in the ham, reserving enough of paste to cover the top. Pour in a very little water, merely sufficient to keep the ham from burning. Put on the lid of paste, and having wet the edges slightly press them together, so as to unite closely the top and bottom crust. Bake it over a steady fire, from four to five or six hours, or more, according to its size. When done, skim the gravy, remove the paste, (which is of no farther use,) and take off the skin of the ham. Dredge it all over with finely grated bread-crumbs, before it goes to table. A ham can scarcely be cooked too much, and too slow. The general fault is in cooking them too little, and too fast. A ham of the smallest size will require at least four hours baking or boiling, even after it has been all night in soak. Save the skin whole, to cover the cold ham when it is put away in the pantry.

When a cooked ham is nearly all used up, take what remains, cut it all off from the bone, and stew the bits in a little water, till they are all to rags. You will find the essence an improvement to gravies, strained from the fragments.

MADEIRA HAM.—

This is a dish only seen at dinner parties. No one can believe, for a moment, that hams really cooked in Madeira wine are served up every week at hotels, particularly at those houses where there is no other superfluity, and where most of the great dishes exist only in the bill of fare. A genuine Madeira ham is cooked as follows:—Take a ham of the very finest sort; should be a Westphalia one. Lay it in hot water, and soak it all day and all night, changing the water several times, and every time washing out the pan. Early in the morning of the second day, put the ham into a large pot of cold water, and boil it slowly during four hours, skimming it well. Then take it out, remove the skin entirely, and put the ham into a clean boiler, with sufficient Madeira wine to cover it well. Boil, or rather stew it, an hour longer, keeping the pot covered except when you remove the lid to turn the ham. When well stewed take it up, drain it, and strain the liquor into a porcelain-lined saucepan. Have ready a sufficiency of powdered white sugar. Cover the ham all over with a thick coating of the sugar, and set it into a hot oven to bake for an hour.

Mix some orange or lemon-juice with the liquor adding plenty of sugar and nutmeg. Give it one boil up over the fire, and serve it up in a tureen, as sauce to the ham.

What is left of the ham may be cut next day into small pieces, put into a stew-pan, with the remains of the liquor or sauce poured over it, and stewed for a quarter of an hour or more. Serve it up all together in the same dish. While it is on the fire, add a little butter to the stew.

BROILED HAM.—

Ham for broiling or frying should be cut into thin slices the evening before, trimmed, and laid in a pan of boiling water, which, near bed-time, should be changed for cold water, and very early in the morning for boiling water, in which it should lie half an hour to soak still longer. If ham is not well soaked previously, it will, when broiled or fried, be disagreeably hard and salt; the salt frying out to the surface and forming a rough unpleasant crust, which will create thirst in the eaters for hours after. Much of the salt of a ham goes off in boiling, but if it is not boiled or soaked, the salt comes out to the surface and there it sticks. The slices being cut thin and nicely trimmed, they should be broiled on a very clean gridiron over a clear fire, and so well done that they incline to curl up at the edges. Dish them hot, and lay on every slice a very small bit of fresh butter, and sprinkle them with pepper.

FRIED HAM.—

Ham for frying need not be quite so thin as for broiling. Put but little butter in the frying-pan, as their own fat is generally sufficient to cook them. Break an egg over the middle of each slice, and let it cook till the white is set, and the yolk appears round and yellow through it. Before it goes to table trim off nicely the discolored and ragged edges of the fried eggs. They look disgusting when left on.

Cold ham is excellent for broiling or frying, and very nice without any further cooking. Send it to table strewed with either nasturtion flowers, pepper-grass, or parsley. All these things have a fine flavor of their own, especially nasturtions.

NICE FRIED HAM.—

Having scalded and soaked some nice ham, cut it into rather thick slices, and then cut these slices into mouthfuls or little narrow slips. Put them into a hot frying-pan, and fry them well. When done, season them with pepper and nutmeg, and serve them up in their own gravy. It will be an improvement to add a beaten egg just before they go to table.

You may add to the ham some bits of cold boiled chicken, pulled in little slips, from the breast, and fried with the ham, adding a little fresh butter.

SLICED HAM.—

Slice very thin some cold boiled ham, and let the slices be nearly of the same size and appearance, making them look as handsome as you can. Cover them with fresh green pepper-grass at a summer breakfast or tea-table; and decorate the pepper-grass by interspersing with it some nasturtion flowers, which are very nice to eat, having a taste agreeably and slightly pungent. Pepper-grass and nasturtions, are very appetizing accompaniments to nice bread and butter.

DISGUISED HAM.—

Scrape or grate a pound of cold boiled ham, twice as much lean as fat. Season it slightly with pepper and a little powdered mace or nutmeg. Beat the yolks only, of three eggs, and mix with them the ham. Spread the mixture thickly over slices of very nice toast, with the crust pared off, and the toast buttered while hot. Brush it slightly on the surface with white of egg, and then brown it with a red hot shovel or salamander. This is a nice breakfast dish.

HAM CAKE.—

This should be made the day before it is wanted. Take the remains of a cold ham. Cut it into small bits, and pound it well (fat and lean together) in a marble mortar, adding some butter and grated nutmeg; or a little cream, sufficient to moisten it throughout. Fill a mould with the mixture, and set it for half an hour into a moderate oven. When ready for use, set the mould for a few minutes into hot water, and then turn out the ham cake on a dish. Cover the surface all over with a coating of beaten white of egg. And before it is quite dry, decorate it with capers, or pickled nasturtion seeds, arranged in a pattern.

Send small bread rolls to the supper table with the ham cake.

HAM OMELET.—

Mince very fine some cold boiled ham, (twice as much lean as fat,) till you have a half pint. Break six eggs, and strain them into a shallow pan. Beat them till very light and thick, and then stir in gradually the minced ham. Have ready, in a hot omelet pan, three table-spoonfuls of lard. When the lard boils, put in the omelet mixture and fry it. Occasionally slip a knife under the edge to keep it loose from the pan. It should be near an inch thick, as a ham omelet is best not to fold over. Make it a good even shape; and when one side is done, turn the other and brown it. You can turn it easily with a knife and fork, holding carefully, close to the omelet, the hot dish on which it is to go to table. Dredge the surface with a little cayenne.

Omelets may be made in this manner, of smoked tongue, or oysters chopped, cold sweetbread, asparagus minced, boiled onions, mushrooms, &c. A good allowance for a small omelet is the above proportion of eggs and lard, or fresh butter; and a large tea-cup of the seasoning article, which must always have been previously cooked.

They are much lighter when served up of their full size, and not folded over in halfs. A large omelet must have from eight to ten, or a dozen eggs. It is best to bake all omelets of the six egg size, and have more in number if required.

HAM TOAST.—

Make some very nice slices of toast, with all the crust trimmed off; and dip each toast for an instant into a bowl of hot water, then butter it slightly. Have ready some grated cold ham, and spread it thick over each slice of toast. Tongue toast is made in the same manner.

SANDWICHES.—

Spread some thin slices of bread very thinly with nice fresh butter, and lay a thin slice of cold ham (the edges neatly trimmed) between every two slices of bread and butter. You may make them so thin, as to roll up—a number being piled on a plate.

BISCUIT SANDWICHES.—

This is a very nice and very pretty dish for a supper table. Have ready one or two dozen of fresh soft milk biscuit. Split them, and take a very little of the soft crumb out of each biscuit, so as to make a slight hollow. Butter the biscuits with very nice fresh butter, and fill them liberally with grated ham or tongue. Stick round the inside of the edges, full sprigs of pepper-grass, or curled parsley, or the green tops of celery. Arrange the sprigs closely and handsomely, so as to project out all round the sides, forming a green border or fringe. We highly recommend biscuit sandwiches.

POTTED HAM.—

Take some cold ham, slice it, and mince it small, fat and lean together. Then pound it in a mortar; seasoning it as you proceed with cayenne pepper, powdered mace, and powdered nutmeg. Then fill with it a large deep pan, and set it in an oven for half an hour. Afterwards pack it down hard in a stone jar, and fill up the jar with lard. Cover it closely, and paste down a thick paper over the jar. If sufficiently seasoned, it will keep well in winter; and is convenient for sandwiches, or on the tea-table. A jar of this will be found useful to travelers in remote places.

Tongue may be potted as above.

All pieces of pork that, after pickling, are dried and smoked, come under the denomination of bacon; except the hind-quarters or legs, and they are always called ham, and are justly considered superior to any other part of the animal, and bring a higher price. The shoulders or fore-quarters, the sides or flitches, the jowl or head, and all the other parts, are designated as bacon; and in some places they erroneously give that name to the whole animal, if cured, or preserved by the process of smoking.

To prepare bacon for being cooked, examine it well, and scrape it carefully, and trim off all unsightly parts. If the fat is yellow, the meat is rusty or tainted, and not fit to eat. So, also, if on the lean there are brownish or blackish spots. All sorts of food, if kept too long, should be thrown away at once.

If perfectly good, prepare the bacon for cooking, by washing it well, and then soaking it for several hours in a pan full of cold water, removing the water once or twice during the process. If the bacon is salt and hard, soak it all night, changing the water at bed-time, and early in the morning.

Ham should also be soaked before cooking.

A dish of broiled ham is a nice accompaniment to one of calves' chitterlings, at breakfast.

TO BOIL BACON.—

Put two or three pounds of nice bacon into a pot with plenty of cold water, and let it simmer slowly for an hour before it begins to boil. Skim it well, and when no more scum rises, put in the vegetables which are usually eaten with bacon, and which taste better for boiling with the meat. These are young greens, or sprouts, very young roots and leaves of the poke plant, and green beans—strung and cut in half—not smaller. On no account should any other vegetables be boiled with bacon. When the bacon is so tender as to be easily pierced through with a fork, even in the thickest places, take it up and drain it well in a cullender or sieve. Remove the skin. Then take up the vegetables and drain them also, pressing out all the liquid. Season them with pepper only. Send the meat to table with the vegetables heaped round it, on the same large dish, (the cabbage being chopped, but not minced fine.) Potatos, squashes, peas, asparagus, &c., should never be boiled in the same pot, or served up in the same dish with bacon, which is too plain a dish for any but a country table; while a ham is a delicacy for the city, or for any place.

BACON AND BEANS.—

Scrape and trim a nice piece of bacon, (not too fat,) and see that no part of it looks yellow or rusty, or shows any appearance of being too old. If so, do not cook it, as it is unwholesome, unpalatable, and unfit to eat. A shoulder is a good piece to boil. The best of the animal, when smoked, is, of course, the ham or leg. We are now speaking of the other pieces that, when cured, are properly called bacon, and are eaten at plain tables only.

The meat, if very salt, is the better for being put in soak early in the morning, or the night before. Afterwards put it into a pot, and boil and skim it till tender. Have ready a quart or two of fresh green string beans, cut into three pieces, (not more); put them into the pot in which the bacon is boiling, and let them cook with the meat for an hour or more. When done, take them out, drain them well; season them well with pepper, and send them to table on a separate dish from the bacon.

Many persons like so well this bacon flavor, that they always, when boiling string-beans, put a small piece of bacon in the pot, removing it before the beans are sent to table.

With bacon and beans, serve up whole potatos boiled and peeled—and in the country, where cream is plenty, they boil some with butter, and pour it over the potatos, touching each one with pepper.

BROILED HAM OR BACON.—

Wash and trim a nice piece of bacon; soak it all night, or for several hours, in cold water. In the morning scald it with boiling water. Let it lie till cool, then throw away the water, and scald it again. Cut it into thin slices, very smooth and even; the rind being previously pared off. Curl up the slices, rolling them round, and securing them with wooden skewers. Broil them on a gridiron, or bake them in a Dutch oven. If cut properly thin, they will cook in a quarter of an hour. They must not be allowed to burn or blacken. Before you send them to table, take out the skewers. They may be cooked in flat slices, without curling, but they must be cut always very thin. Slice some hard-boiled eggs, and lay them on the meat. Season with black pepper.

Cold boiled ham cooked as above, will require no soaking, and can be speedily prepared for a breakfast dish. Lay sprigs of parsley on the ham.

Serve up with them mashed potatos made into balls, or thick flat cakes, and browned on the surface with a red-hot shovel.

STEWED HAM.—

Cut some thin slices of cold boiled ham. Season them slightly with pepper. No salt. Lay them in a stew pan with plenty of green peas or lima beans, or else cauliflowers, or young summer cabbage, quartered, and the thick stalk omitted. Add a piece of fresh butter, or a very little lard. Put in just water enough to keep the things from burning. When the vegetables are quite done, add a beaten egg or two, and in five minutes, take up the stew and send it to table.

STEWED BACON.—

Take a small piece of bacon, not too fat or salt. It had best be soaked in cold water the night before. Put it into a pot, with a large portion of string beans, each cut into three pieces, (not more,) or else some cabbage, or young cabbage sprouts. Early in the spring, the young stalks of the pokeberry plant will be found excellent with stewed bacon. Stew the bacon and vegetables in just water enough to cover them all; skimming frequently. Drain all, through a cullender, when done. Have a dish of boiled potatos also. A molasses indian pudding is a good conclusion to this homely dinner.

PREPARED LARD.—

As soon as it is cut off from the newly killed pork, put the fat into a crock, or deep earthen pot. Cover the crock with its own lid, and let it stand all night in a cool place. Next day, cut it into small bits, (carefully removing all the fleshy particles of lean); and then put the fat into a very clean pot, without either water or salt. The pot should not be more than half full of pork-fat. Let it boil slowly, (stirring it frequently from the bottom, lest it burn,) till it becomes quite clear and transparent. Then ladle it into clean pans. When almost cold, put it into stoneware jars, which must be closely covered, and kept in a cool place. If it is to go to a distance, tie it up in new bladders.

There are two sorts of pork-fat for lard. The leaf-fat, which is best; and the fat that adheres to the entrails. These two fats should be boiled separately.

The large entrails, whose skins are to be used for sausages, must be cleaned out carefully, well scraped, and thrown into strong salt and water for two days, (changing the brine the second day,) and afterwards into strong lye for twenty-four hours. Lastly, wash them in fresh water. We think it much better to dispense with the skins altogether; keeping your sausage meat in jars, and frying it in cakes when wanted for use. Its own fat (as it exudes) will cook it.

Never use bad butter when you can obtain good lard, for frying, and other purposes.