Whatever may be true of the extent to which pork and pork products are wholesome for particular individuals, there can be no doubt that its delicious flavour will insure its being eaten by a large number of people who either do not know or do not care whether it agrees with them or not. Experiments undertaken under the management of the Department of Agriculture[1] have resulted in the conclusion that pork is as thoroughly and easily digested, under normal conditions of health, as any meat, although personal experience would indicate that pork does not agree with some people as well as other kinds of meat. It is specially important, however, that pork be very well cooked or well cured, in order to insure against the danger from trichinosis. We are told by B. H. Ransom[2] that it is only by eating raw or insufficiently cooked or cured pork that there is thought to be any danger of this disease. Curing is the process of smoking, salting, or combined salting and smoking of meat, which acts as a preservative for it. We thus see that, not only because it is a white meat, as mentioned in the chapter on veal, pork and pork products should be cooked until very well done.

As pork is the fattest of all meats, it is suitable for a cold-weather diet and will probably be found to agree better at that season. For whatever reason it may be, fresh pork seems to be less wholesome than when cured, bacon having the reputation of being one of the most easily digested of all fats.

Young pigs (four weeks old) are frequently dressed and roasted whole.

Pork is usually cut for market in the manner illustrated in figure No. 10.

The back is fat and is used for salt pork or lard. The ribs are used for spare-ribs, and the loin or chine, which is the backbone with its adhering meat, is used for roasts or chops. The legs are roasted, if fresh, or they are cured, by salting and smoking, for hams, sugar being used in the salting process, which gives the name “sugar-cured hams”; the shoulders are treated in the same way and may be used very much as hams, although the flesh is not so thick and the proportion of bone is greater. The belly is cured for bacon, the head and feet are soused or pickled, and the trimmings of fat and lean are chopped, highly seasoned, and used for sausage, or combined with meal and made into scrapple.

To select fresh pork. The meat should be firm and of a pale red colour, the fat hard and white and the skin white and clear. Yellowish fat, with kernels in it, and soft, flabby flesh are an indication of inferior pork.

Boiled Ham or Shoulder

Put a ham or shoulder in a large enough cooker-pail to allow of its being covered with eight or ten quarts of water. A special oblong or extra deep utensil may be required for cooking hams and such very large cuts of meat. Put in the ham, add cold water to fill the utensil, and bring it to a boil. This will serve to draw out a good deal of the salt from the meat and will not extract much of the meat flavour, if the ham be whole. A cut ham may be covered with boiling water which will seal the pores on the surface of the meat and help to retain its juices. Allow the ham to simmer for twenty minutes, or, if very large, for one-half hour, then put it into a cooker for seven hours or more. The larger the ham the greater the quantity of water must be, a fifteen-pound ham taking as much as fifteen quarts of water. Success in cooking large cuts of meat will depend to a great extent upon using sufficient water.

Fresh Pork with Sauerkraut

Wash and gash a two-pound piece of fresh, lean pork into slices. Put it with one quart of sauerkraut into a cooker-pail of boiling salted water. Let it boil for fifteen minutes, tightly covered. Place it in a cooker for eight or ten hours. Reheat till boiling, drain it, and serve the pork in a platter, with the sauerkraut arranged as a border; or put the sauerkraut into a vegetable dish. It grows cold quickly and must be served promptly and on hot dishes.

Serves six or eight persons.

Head Cheese

Cut a hog’s head into four pieces. Remove the brain, ears, skin, snout, and eyes. Cut off the fat to try out for lard. Put the lean and bony parts to soak in cold water over night to extract the blood. Clean the head thoroughly, put it into a cooker-pail, cover it with cold water, boil it for fifteen minutes and put it into the cooker for ten hours or more. If the meat will not then slip readily from the bones, bring it again to a boil and put it into the cooker until it will (perhaps six hours more). Remove the bones and hard gristle, drain off the liquor, reserving it for future use. Put the meat through a food-chopper, return it to the cooker-pail with enough of the liquor to cover it, and salt, pepper, and powdered sage to taste. Let it boil, put it into a cooker for an hour or more, then pour it into a shallow pan or dish; cover it with cheese-cloth and a board with a weight, to hold it in place. When cold it will be solid, and is ready to serve, thinly sliced.

Souse

Treat a hog’s head in the same manner as for head cheese, adding a little vinegar with the other seasonings.

Scrapple

Treat a hog’s head in the same manner as for head cheese, up to the point where the liquor is added to the chopped meat. The heart and liver may also be cooked with the head, and any scraps or bloody parts of the meat may be soaked and cooked with it. When the meat is freed from bone, gristle, and skin, and chopped finely, and all the liquor is added to it, it is seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, thyme or marjoram, and brought to a boil. Enough corn-meal, or corn-meal and buckwheat flour in the proportion of one-third cupful of buckwheat to two-thirds of a cupful of corn-meal, is added, to make the mixture of the consistency of corn-meal mush. About one cupful of the two combined will be required for each three pints of the pork mixture. Let this come to a boil, stirring it constantly; boil it five minutes, and put it into a cooker for four hours or more. Pour it into a mould or bread pan and, when cold, slice and fry it like sausage.

Pickled Pigs’ Feet

Wash the pigs’ feet, soak them in warm water for one-half hour, then scrub and scrape them well; soak them again for twelve hours in cold, salted water, and clean them again. If necessary, singe them; remove the toes, and bring them to a boil in salted water to more than cover them. Boil them five minutes, and cook them for ten hours or more in a cooker. If not tender, reheat them till boiling, and cook them again. Remove them from the water, split them with a cleaver, unless this is done before cooking, pack them in a jar, and cover them with hot, spiced vinegar, preferably made from white wine. They are eaten cold, or dipped in batter and fried.

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