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SWINES flesh, says an eminent physician, nourishes very plentifully, and yields firm nourishment; therefore is most profitable to those that are in their flourishing age, sound and strong, who are exercised with much labour. Now, as such, I would here introduce it, and for its being a most pleasant serviceable meat, especially for the diet of harvest-men now and then, because a porker, newly killed, admits of many ways of dressing it, is cheaper done, is less cloying, and keeps (salted) sweet and sound longer than any other meat whatsoever: Witness the approbation it meets with in the county of Kent, where pickled pork is in such general esteem, that they make very little bacon there, because a dish of pickled pork, with apple dumplins, &c. is there deemed an agreeable repast, from the peer to the peasant. And as thus, it stands the most ready and cheapest of flesh victuals to tradesmen and farmers in particular; for here the common plowman thinks himself not rightly provided, if he cannot carry a piece of pickled pork and apple-dumplin into the field, to bite on till he comes home to dinner; as ours in Hertfordshire take a piece of bread and cheese with them; for pickled pork is more profitable to a family than bacon, because there is no reason to commit waste in eating it, as too often is seen in the case of the latter, when its burnt thick rind or skin, and the rusty inside of the fleshy part, tempt many to throw them away. Bacon is likewise very apt to have its gammon-part damaged by the breed of very minute insects of the vermicular kind, that are first generated in it, and when a little aged become winged, for it is then that they skip or fly about, and from hence it is that they are called the hopper-fly, that will, if not prevented, eat into and spoil the whole gammon; and how to prevent it without making a present consumption of the bacon, is above the art of most people, as I shall in my second part of the Country Housewife further observe. Whereas these damages are intirely avoided in pickling of pork, as well as the disagreeable rankness of taste that bacon is very subject to have in it, if kept aged.

  Of killing a Barrow-Hog for a pickled Porker in Harvest Time.--This is a late practice in Hertfordshire, but takes more and more every year, because the fresh meat of a porker lessens the farmer's expence in beef, &c. For this sort of meat being of his own feeding, not only stands him in less charge than beef, but when it is managed by a good housewife, will go further than any other sort of flesh in a family. And why the killing of a porker in harvest has not been long practised is, because most people imagine that the weather at this season of the year is too hot for making the flesh take salt kindly, so as to keep sweet afterwards. But the contrary of this erroneous opinion, I and many others every year prove, by an artful and careful management; for we, in the first place, take care to keep a porker from meat two days and two nights before we kill him, because if a porker was killed with a bellyful of meat, the flesh of it would not keep so long sweet and sound, as one killed when its belly is empty of food. This is so well observed by butchers, that they not only follow this rule in killing a porker, but do it also in killing all other beasts, whenever their conveniency allows it. So when a porker is killed in the summer time, it should be done in the evening, that the flesh may be the sooner cold, by the approaching night; and when the hair is scalded off, and the guts taken out, my way is to hang the carcase up in the cellar, or other cool place, where the great blue blow-fly cannot come. This I did by one I scalded in August 1746, about the third day after I had began harvest, that weighed five and twenty stone, as I did another in August 1748, and is what I generally practise every year, as one of the best pieces of husbandry belonging to a farmer's house for lessening the total of a butcher's bill.

  Of cutting out the Carcase of a Porker for pickling.--The next morning we cut out the carcase into many pieces. First the butcher cuts off the head and cleaves the porker asunder, then takes out the spare-ribs, or chine, or both; if a chine is saved, the spare-ribs will be the less. Next he chops off the four hocks, then cuts out the two blade-bones, and two butt or buttock pieces, and last of all the short or broiling ribs. The rest, being all flesh is pickled; and for this, the butcher cuts it out into square pieces according to the bigness of the family.

  Observations on killing several Sorts of Sow-Hogs for pickled Pork.--A young sow, that has had but one litter of pigs, and is gone near half her time with pig again; if such a one is fatted and killed then, her flesh will eat almost, if not quite, as well as the flesh of a spay'd sow, if pickled for pork. The next observation is, that I killed, on the thirteenth day of May, 1745, a sow that had had two litters of pigs; her last litter was pig'd on the 11th of March and on the 4th of April I sold off her pigs. On the 30th of April she took boar, and thirteen days after I killed her, being near the middle of three weeks after her brimming time was over; and she eat exceeding sweet and fine, as being fatted with barley-meal after a particular method; for though she was fattening but a little while, yet by being kept well before, she was thought to weigh thirty-five stone, tho' fattened for pickled pork. It is also become a late practice to kill an old sow for pickled pork, notwithstanding she be seven years old, or more, but then as her skin by such an age is got thick and tough, she is better pickled with her skin first taken off. This has been done to my knowledge for harvest and other uses, to a good purpose; for as such an old sow is fatted on a sudden from a very lean condition, with barley-meal or other sweet food, the flesh eats tender and luscious, like that of a young barrow-hog. And as to her skin or hide, a profit may be made of it, by selling it to the tanner, for that with tanned hog-skins many saddles are covered, and sold for a better price.

  How a Farmer in Hertfordshire singed the Hair off his Hogs, to make pickled Pork of them.--This farmer rented about a hundred year in Great-Gaddesden parish, and was of opinion, that singing or burning off the hair of hog made the flesh harder and firmer, and better for pickling, as pork. Accordingly, after the hog's hair was burnt off with straw, he rubbed the skin with a brickbat dipt in hot water, till he got it white and clean. But I cannot say I am of his opinion.

  Of pickling Pork in Harvest and at other Times of the Year.--When the carcase of a porker is cut out, and the bony pieces separated from the fleshy ones, we lay the fleshy pieces on a clean brick cellar-floor, in harvest-time, or any other summer weather; but if a porker is killed in winter, we lay them on a table or bench, somewhat in a sloping posture, close by one another, out of a cellar. The pork so laid, we sprinkle common salt over all of it, and let it remain in this condition a day, or a day and night, to drain out its bloody gravey or juice; for if this is not first carefully done, the pork will stink, notwithstanding it is well fatted. Then to a porker that weighs five and twenty stone (which is the bigness I commonly kill mine at) we make use of a peck and a pottle of common salt, well mixed with two ounces of salt-petre, finely beaten. These two salts being well incorporated, our housewife salts every piece of pork with it all over; and as she salts them, she lays or packs them very close in a glazed earthen pot or powdering tub (but we account the first best) and between every layer of pork sprinkles some coarse sugar, till a pound of it is thus made use of. When all is potted, she lays over it a wooden cover.

  The Practice of an old Hertfordshire Housewife in the pickling of Pork.--This old Hertfordshire housewife, who lived many years at Market-street, and boarded persons who were under the care of the late ---- Copping, Esq; for the cure of cancers, &c. often said, that sugar helps to preserve pickled pork, and therefore should be always used with salt, to make the pork eat sweet, short, and well colour'd; but first of all her practice was to rub over every piece of pork as thin as possible with powder'd salt-petre, and then to rub the mixture of salt and sugar over them; for that the salt-petre hardens the flesh, and the sugar softens it, and greatly lessens the fery sharp taste of it. One pound and a half of sugar, she says, is enough to mix with a peck of common salt, and four ounces of salt-petre is enough for a porker that weighs five and thirty stone: She also says, that a board or cloth, or both, should be laid, and kept always over the pot or pickling tub, to keep out the air, for that if the air gets much to it, it will never recover its first fine taste, do what you can: She likewise strictly observes to take out every piece of pickled pork with a fork as she wants it, for that if the fingers touch it, they are apt to taint and spoil the pork.

  The Practice of a second Hertfordshire Housewife, in the pickling of her Pork.--This woman's way is to mix common salt, bay-salt, and salt-petre, beat very fine with sugar in a bowl; then with this mixture she rubs over every piece of her pork, and thus salts it all down in a pot or tub, saying, that this is a better way than to strew sugar between the layers of pork.

  The Practice of a third Hertfordshire Housewife, in the pickling of her Pork.--To a porker, weighing twenty stone, she made use of a quarter of a pound of salt-petre mixt in powder with common salt to the quantity of a peck, and after the pieces of pork were sprinkled with salt, to extract the bloody part that remained in them, she rubbed them well all over with the salt mixture; and if, after the pork had been potted down about a week, the briny dissolution of the salt did not appear to her liking, she drained off what was liquid, and boiled and scum'd it, and in the boiling added more salt and water, which when cold, she poured on her pickled pork. But there are some that in such a case will take out every piece of the pork, and salt it over again with common salt, and then pour over it this refined brine, as thinking all such preparation but little enough to preserve pork a year together sweet and sound, especially if the hog is killed in harvest, or at any time in the summer, because they are sensible it is the heat of the weather that chiefly endangers pickled pork to eat rank, wherefore if the fresh pieces of pork, as I said, are laid on a cellar-brick-floor, or in some other cool place, to draw out the heat that remains in the flesh, it will be in no danger of eating rank or being otherwise damaged: A trouble that ought not to be grudged, since one night's time is sufficient for this, if the cellar is of a very cool sort.

  How a young Maid-Servant spoiled the Flesh of a Porker for want of knowing how to pickle it.--This happened to my certain knowledge, for I was an eye-witness of it, by seeing the spoiled pork when it lay abroad on the dunghill, occasioned merely by the ignorance of a young maid-servant, who having no mistress to look over her, pretended herself capable of pickling a porker. But it happened otherwise, for after the pork had been a little time in the pickling pot, it began to smell rank, and as it continued longer, it became worse; insomuch, that she was obliged to throw most of a fine fat porker to the dunghill, for that none of the farmer's servants would eat it. Now this damage was occasioned by her not first sprinkling the pieces of pork with salt the night before they were pickled, for the bloody juice to drain out of them; for had she so done, and the pork lain thus but twelve hours before it was pickled down, this loss had been prevented.

  A famous Receit for pickling of Pork.--Is this: Put as much salt into water, as will cause an egg to swim; boil and scum it well; when cold, put it into a pickling pot or tub, or earthen jar, and put your pieces of pork into it; here they are to remain a whole week, for the bloody gravey to be extracted; then take out all the brine, and boil and scum it again, with an addition of salt and water, if you find it necessary; when cold, put in the pork to stand a week longer, do the same a third time a week after, then stop it up close for keeping: In this manner, pork may be made to keep sweet and sound a long time; and by this method you may preserve your offald-pieces for a great while, as hocks, tongues, chines, spare-ribs, butt-pieces, &c. And if you approve of the pork being of a reddish colour, boil an ounce, two, or three, of salt-petre in the brine, and it will not only bring it under this colour, but secure your meat the better from tainting.--A second receit is, When the pork is cut from the bones, rub every piece well with salt-petre; this done, take one part bay-salt, and two parts common salt, and with this rub every piece thoroughly well; then strew common salt over all the bottom of the pickling pot or tub, and lay in and cover every piece of pork with salt; pack them as close as you can, and fill the hollow places with salt; likewise when you perceive that the top salt melts down, strew over more salt, and you need not fear the pork keeping sound a good while.--A third receit. Some make use of half petre-salt, and half salt-petre, to mix with common salt, as having a notion, that petre-salt mix'd makes the flesh red and soft, when salt-petre alone makes it red and hard: However, they allow, that all these three mixed with sugar, shortens the flesh, gives it a pleasant relish, and makes it eat somewhat like ham, and keeps it from sliming. And for the better preventing any corruption breeding among the pork, some will, after it has lain a month salted down, take out every piece, and lay them in a fresh pot; and as they are laid in, will sprinkle a little salt over every one of them; and after the old pickle is boiled, and scum'd, when cold, will pour it over the pork; for though pork is potted with only salt, yet it will all turn to brine in less than a fortnight: Now all this cost, care, and pains in pickling pork, is no more than what is necessary, since (according to the opinion of some) it does not come to its full perfection of goodness under one year's time.

  How a Hertfordshire Housewife damaged best pickled Pork.--In pickling her pork, by mistake she put too much salt-petre amongst it, and thereby gave it such a disagreeable rank taste that it could hardly be eaten, especially when it was hot, for when the pork was eaten cold it did not taste so bad; therefore this housewife said, that two ounces of salt-petre was full enough to mix with common salt, for salting a porker of twenty stone weight; and although this woman tried, by washing some pieces of the pickled pork with hot water, to take off the ill taste, yet it proved past her skill, for that the flesh retained its disagreeable twang to the last.

  Why Pork, that is to be pickled, should be first sprinkled with Salt, to soak and draw out its bloody Part.--The reason is, because there are veins in the flesh, that contain some blood in them, which, if not first extracted and discharged by the salt, will corrupt and taint the pure flesh. On this very account, some are so careful, that they will not pickle down their pork till it has lain under a sprinkling of salt a night and a day; others refuse to let it lie more than six or eight hours, as believing, that if it lies longer, the gravey part will be also drawn out: However, this is certain, that if the bloody water is not first got out, it will mix with the brine, and corrupt and spoil all the pork.

  A new and safer Way to pickle a Porker in Summer-Time.--This is in case you have not the conveniency of a close cold cellar; then kill your porker in the evening, and as soon as his guts and appurtenances are taken out, sift some black pepper through a fine sieve, and strew it all over the inside of the carcase; then hang it up till morning, when you are to lay the two sides of it in a strong pickle for five or six hours; for in this time the brine will extract and draw the bloody juices and jelly out of the flesh; this being done, cut the whole into convenient pieces, and salt and pickle it as before. By this means the flesh is delivered from the damage of its great enemy the blow-fly, that are very apt to get to it through the small holes and crannies; but if they do, they cannot meddle with the inside of the porker, because the pepper dust defends it. And as the pork is pickled, the pepper taste will be entirely overcome and lost by the greater power of the salt.--Or kill a porker in the summer evening, and hang him in a cellar with a wet cloth round it, if there be danger of the fly, for cutting it out next evening.

  A particular Way of salting down a Porker for pickled Pork.--I will here suppose the porker to be scalded, (which is what I always do) for then the flesh will take salt better than when it is singed, because the fire locks up the pores of the skin, when scalding opens them; after the porker has been killed about ffteen hours in cool weather, cut it out, and sprinkle some common salt over the pieces, as before directed: This done, if the porker weighs thirty stone, take a peck and a half of salt, a quarter of a pound of salt-petre powder'd, a quart of petre-salt, and a pound and a half of coarse sugar; put these ingredients well mixed into an iron-pan, and heat them very hot, and with it salt every piece of pork thoroughly well, and pack the pieces very close in an earthen glazed vessel; then put a round board over the mouth of a round pot, and a weight on that, and a thick cloth tied fast over all: The weight presses down the pork into the brine, and the cloth keeps out the air; for it is the air that corrupts and breeds a nasty flm on the top of the pickled pork. N.B. In salting down a porker to pickle, there must be salt enough made use of to raise a brine, as the Kentish housewives do, or else the porker will be in danger of corrupting.

  A Country Woman's Way to manage a Porker that is too small, for pickling a long Time.--Of a por[k]er about eight or ten stone weight, that is to be eaten quickly, she has the spare-ribs cut likewise, then salts the pieces but very little, even only to a sprinkling, for drawing out the bloody juices; twelve hours, she says, will do this in calm weather, four and twenty in frosty; then she salts them for good: Of such a small porker she makes two haslets, one with only the heart, lights, and sticking-piece, stuck on a great skewer, with sage mix'd with salt, and baked as it lies over an earthen pan in the oven.--Another haslet may be made with the short bony pieces spitted, roasted, and eaten with apple-sauce and mustard.

  The Kentish and Suffolk Ways of pickling Pork.--The pickling of pork, I believe I may say it for truth, was first practised to the greatest perfection in the county of Kent, as is well known to me, that have lived in three several parts of this famous country; since which the Suffolk farmer has fell into such an approbation of it, that he refuses to make bacon, for giving the preference to pickled pork: Here their general way is to kill porkers at two several times of the year; the first sort are those smaller porkers that have run in the stubble, and got some flesh on their backs, which comes in for a first and present supply of meat, after their old pickled pork is expended; and as small porkers are to become a family subsistence for about three months, they salt the pieces accordingly, without salting them so much as to create a deep brine; and as the weather at this time of the year comes in colder and colder, such salting will prove sufficient to keep the flesh sweet till Christmas following, when they begin to kill their large hogs, to pickle for the ensuing part of the year. And when at this time they kill their large pickling hogs, after they are scalded, and the fleshy pieces have been sprinkled with salt, for drawing out the bloody gravey, they cut almost all the lean from off the fat, and leave the pieces as fat as they well can to be pickled down; and for putting the lean part so cut off to the best use, they think it so done, when they make sausages of it; then when they salt down the pieces of pork, a man is there on purpose to press down every one as tight as he can possibly; and this he does to prevent the[i]r swim[m]ing in the brine, for if they swim, they will rust and spoil: The pork being thus salted and pressed down in a pickling tub (for here they refuse the earthen glazed pot) they have a wooden cover in a hoop, that shuts or covers the tub so close, that it prevents the air getting to the pork. And when they want to take out a piece, they do it with a fork as it lies on the top, for they never meddle with an under piece, to the displacing of an upper one; and to prevent the necessity of using such a tub of pickled pork too soon, some of their best housewives keep a stock of old pickled pork by them; for, as they manage it, it will keep years together sound and good; and therefore they bestow a second security on it, by boiling a very strong brine about Lady-Day, which when cold, they put over the pickled pork, and then begin to make use of it. And so opinionated are these Suffolk housewives of their pickling pork in the best manner of all others, that they say, it will eat almost like marrow when it is rightly boiled; and thus their pickled pork becomes the chief, and almost the only meat the Suffolk farmer's-family feeds on: Accordingly, it is said, that when one of these farmers rents two hundred a year, by this, and other frugal managements, his butcher's bill amounts but to a trifle in a twelvemonth's time.

  To bake the Ears, Feet, the Nose-part, Mugget, or gristly lean Parts of a Hock of Pork.--These, or any part of them, may be made a good family pleasant dish, thus:--Lay them in a glazed earthen pot, and strew over them some salt, pepper, onions, one or more bay leaves; over these pour water till it is above them, bake it two or three hours, and keep it as it comes out of the oven till wanted, then cut and fry it in slices; the sauce is a little of the pickle, flower, and butter melted with some mustard.

  To roast Pork in a Collar.--There is a pretty way of doing this with a breast, or any other part of the hog that will admit of rolling into a collar: The flesh must be taken from the bones, and rubbed over with salt, thyme, sage, nutmeg, cloves and mace, all in powder, then roll and tie it up, and run the spit through it long ways. Or you may season such a collar of pork with only thyme, parsley and sage; roll it in a hard collar in a cloth, tie it at both ends, boil it, and when cold, keep it in a soucing drink.

  Rabisha's Way to souce a Pig in Collars.--Chine your pig (says he) in two parts, take out all the bones, and lay it to soak in water all night; next day scrape off all the filth from the skin or back part, and wipe it very dry; then strew some pepper over it, with a little powder'd mace, ginger, and a bay leaf or two; roll it in two collars, and let your water boil before you put it in, keep it scumming till it is half boiled; when boiled enough, keep it in a soucing drink.--Or take it this way: When you have cut off the head of the pig, slit the body in two, taken out its bones, and washed the flesh in several waters, you should then scrape the skinny part, and wipe it dry; this done, season it with a mixture of salt, thyme, and parsley; roll it hard with filletting, and boil it in two quarts of water with the bones; which put into about a quart of vinegar, a handful of salt, sweet herbs, and spice, and a bay leaf or two, and when boiled tender, keep it in this pickle or soucing drink.--Or what I think is a better way still: Boil the two collars only in water, till they are very tender, and when so boiled, take only a little of this water, and add to it a little white-wine (and isinglass if you please) some salt, vinegar, mace, and two or three bay leaves; this boil by itself a very little while, when cold put in the two collars, and keep them in it as a soucing drink or pickle; if this pickle is made strong, it is said to preserve such collars sweet half a year together, but the head must be eaten presently. These several ways were printed by old authors, and inserted by several new ones, in their late collections.

  Rabisha's Way to bake a Pig.--Scald it (says he) and slit it in the midst, flay it and take out the bones, season it with pepper and salt, cloves, mace, and nutmeg, chop sweet herbs fine, with the yolks of two or three new laid eggs, and parboiled currants; then lay one half of your pig into your pye, and herbs on it, then put in the other half with more herbs aloft on that, and a good piece of sweet butter aloft upon all: It is a good dish (says he) both hot and cold.--But the farmer's wife, when she bakes a pig, makes no more to do, than to lay a pig (after it is scalded, to get the hairs off, and gutted) in an earthen pan, with a paper over it to keep it from being scorched; and for sauce, she employs the brains, gravey and currants.--But John Murrell gives his printed receit thus: To bake a pig, says he, cut it in quarters, season them with pepper, salt, and ginger, lay them in pye crust, and strew over them shred parsley and savory, minced hard yolks of eggs, blades of mace, currants, sugar, and sweet butter: In two hours time it will be baked, then mix some vinegar and sugar, and pour it by way of a layer over the pye with scraped sugar.--Again Rabisha says, to improve a pig pye, bone the flesh, and season it with nutmeg, pepper, salt, and chopt sage; then slice thinly a boil'd neat's tongue or two, and lay the slices on some pig, then more pig, and then more tongue, and so on: The pig is to be laid in quarters, and over all put a few slices of bacon, cloves, butter, and a bay leaf or two; make the paste white and good, and after it is out of the oven, put in some sweet butter.

  To roast a Pig.--Murrell says, to make a pudding to put in its belly, take grated bread, half a pound of minced suet, a handful of currants and cloves, mace, nutmeg, and ginger in powder, with salt and sugar, two eggs, rose-water, and some cream; sew the pudding up in the pig's belly, and roast it; when almost roasted, squeeze the juice of lemon over it with grated bread; the sauce is vinegar, butter, and sugar, and minced hard yolk of egg with it.--But I think the plainer way better than this, which is to mix salt with chopt sage and parsley, and sew it in the pig's belly; put paper round it, to keep it from scorching, and roast it; the sauce, butter, brains, gravey, vinegar, sugar, and currants.

  The Farmers Way of dressing a Porker's Head, Feet, and Ears.--We make no more to do, than to boil them tender, and eat them with mustard; and if any of them are left cold, we fry them in lard with some onions, and eat with mustard.--Or else, mince the flesh of them, and lade butter over it for eating.--But to eat the feet and ears in a nicer manner; when they are boiled, chop them small, and mix butter with gravey, shalot, mustard, and slices of lemon; then stew all together.

  To fry collar'd Pork.--Beat up some yolks of eggs with grated nutmeg, then cut slices of your collar, and dip them in it; then fry them, and eat with mustard and sugar. Or you may broil a chine, or other proper piece of pork, and sauce it thus; cut turnips in bits, boil them in broth and milk, then toss them up with butter and vinegar, and pour it over the broiled pork.

  Pork-Balls to fry.--These are pretty ready victuals, made with the fat of bacon and the lean of fresh pork mashed together in a mortar or otherwise, with powder'd spices and shred sage, crums of bread and flower, fry'd in little balls, or in little square pieces, in a pan of lard.

  A Yorkshire Cook-Maid's Way to pickle Pork.--She rubs the pieces over night with only brown sugar, and lays them sloping on a table or bench to drain, next day she rubs on them salt-petre powder, mixed with common salt and some loaf sugar, then pots it up; no way, she says, exceeds this.

  How to bake or roast a Hog's Haslet in the cheapest Manner the Hertfordshire Way.--A hog's haslet is to be composed of the sticking-piece, the lights, the heart, and sometimes the milt; these being well washed, and cleansed from their blood, are cut into pieces about the bigness of one's hand; then we get ready beaten pepper, salt, shred sage and onion: This being done, we run a stick, or very large skewer, through every one of the pieces of meat; but before we put them on the skewer, we roll every piece in the seasoning, and when skewer'd, strew over them the shred sage and onion; next we fasten the kell or caul of the hog round the haslet, for preventing its scorching, and causing it to come moist out of the oven with gravey and fat in the earthen-pan it lay over; if the caul is from a small hog, it is but little enough to lay over and cover the haslet, but if from a large hog, half the skinny part may be sufficient, and the thick fat part cut in bits, for being melted and try'd up with the fat of the belly-piece; both which, being a sort that will not keep sweet so long as lard, may be made use of to fry pancakes, &c. This is the most profitable way of all others to dress a hog's haslet, because it is thus made palatable and wholesome without waste, for by thus baking it, the haslet of a large hog has yielded a pound or more of fat, which, as soon as the haslet is out of the oven, is scum'd off, and put into a glazed earthen pot, to be kept for frying meat with, &c. And as the gravey liquor is left behind in the pan, it serves for palatable sopping, and in the whole, gives a family a delightful nourishing dish.--But if the haslet is to be roasted, the very same preparation will do, only instead of running a skewer through the pieces of meat, they must be spitted; but as roasting a haslet is more troublesome and costly than baking it, where a person has an opportunity, the last way is to be preferred.--A second way to roast a haslet, though more costly than the first, is, to cut the heart in thin and the liver in thicker pieces, about the bigness of a hand, with the fat crow, sweetbread, and sticking-piece only. This done, besmear the pieces with beaten eggs, and then rub them over with a mixture made of grated bread, shred sage, pepper, salt, and marjoram, and as you spit the pieces so prepared, put a few thin bits of fat bacon amongst them, and wrap the caul over all. When roasted, eat it with vinegar, mustard and melted butter for sauce.

  The Hertfordshire cheap Way of making Family Mince-Pyes with a Hog's-haslet.--For this we make use only of the lights, the sticking-piece, and heart; and if they are of an old hog, they must be first boiled an hour, or till they are tender. This being done, they must be first chopt or minced very small, and mixed with plumbs, currants, coarse sugar, and Jamaica spice at discretion, then put it into a pan-paste, or into raised paste, or into pasties, for baking.

  The Hertfordshire Way to make Mince-Pyes for a large Family, with a Haslet, &c. is this.--Against the time that a hog is to be killed, many of the Hertfordshire women provide a calf's chauldron; and when these guts are cleaned, they likewise clean the hog's guts, and boil them together till they are tender. Next they chop and mince both very small, and likewise boil and mince the haslet, and other odd bits of meat from a porker or bacon hog. And when plumbs or currants, or both, with some Jamaica spice, is mixed with such minced meat, there may be be several pyes made, to be eaten hot or cold, which may be baked in earthen or tin pans, or as pasties in turnover crust. This is much in practice in and about the town of Tring in Hertfordshire, partly because there is much veal brought to this market (that lies thirty miles from London) from the adjacent country, which is famous for producing the whitest sort in England.

  The Hertfordshire Housewife's Way to make Pork Pyes, or turn-over Pork-pasties in Harvest-time.--As it is one of the best pieces of husbandry, on the victualling account, to kill a porker at the beginning of harvest; so it is a good piece of housewifery to make the best use of the offald-pieces of the same. To do which, our housewife takes the two kidneys, the two butt-pieces, the mouse-pieces, that grew at the end of the blade-bones, the two blade-bones, and other odd pieces, and chops them into bits, about the bigness of a pidgeon's egg; then peppers and salts them pretty high, for at this time of year this is more than ordinarily necessary to be done, because these pyes or pasties are to be kept some days for being eaten cold: This done, make a regular mixture of the fat and lean pieces; if there be not fat pieces enough, the pye will eat dry, and if there be too much fat, it will be apt to make the harvest-men sick. Now with these fleshy and bony bits of meat, several large pyes may be made, and baked, either in raised paste, in earthen pans, or in pewter dishes, or in the shape of turn-over two-corner'd pasties, and thus they become a most necessary and convenient food at this time of the year, for farmers families in particular, because the cold pyes or pasties are a portable, wholesome, and satiating victuals for breakfast or dinner; but in cold weather, the blade-bones of a porker are generally broiled, and not chopt in bits to bake in pyes. N. B. Thus it is our Hertfordshire way to make pyes of the short bony pieces, and boil the coarse fleshy pieces first; so that our housewife salts down or pickles only the fine fat pieces clear of all bone, as being the only way to eat all the flesh of a porker in sweet order; for if the bony pieces are salted and pickled down, it's a great chance if they do not stink. And it is by these housewifely good managements that we dare to kill porkers, even of thirty stone weight, in the hottest weather of summer, with an assurance of keeping the meat from tainting, provided we have a good cellar.--A second receit is, To cut the lean part of a porker, with some of its fat part, and mix and beat them together. This done, season them with nutmeg, mace, pepper, and salt; and between every piece of this beaten meat, lay a small thin cut of hard fat, as that of the chine or such like. When all is put into the pye-crust, put bits of butter on the top of it, with some claret, just as the pye is put into the oven.--A third receit is, that in case you roast or boil a joint of pork, and it prove to be under boiled or roasted, it may be recovered, by making it into a pye with the following ingredients, viz. take as much of potatoes as there is pork, pare them, and cut the potatoes and pork into small bits; season it with salt and pepper, and lay it in a pye-crust, putting pieces of butter at bottom and on the top of it; then as it is going to be put into the oven, pour in some water, and bake it moderately.--An excellent way is to skin the pork, and cutting it into flat pieces, a hand's breadth, rub them over with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg; lay these in a pan of paste, with minced apples, sugar, and white wine, over which lay bits of butter, then close up, and bake the pye.

  The Hertfordshire (or this Author's) Way of baking pickled Pork.--This is much practised in my own family, and many other families in Hertfordshire, as a valuable piece of good housewifery; because no meat comes so cheap to the farmer as pickled pork, rightly managed, for preventing a butcher's bill, and is performed in two different manners; one is, by baking a piece of pickled pork in an earthen pan or dish, with a pudding by its side. The other is to lay a piece of it singly a little hollowish on a pan, with apples or potatoes under it. But in either case, the piece of fat pickled pork should be soaked and shifted in fresh water several times, for a day or two before it is made use of, to lessen the sharpness of the salt. This dish, if the pork is cut or hack'd in the skin, baked and eaten with apple-sauce or potatoes, will prove so much like roasted pork, as hardly to be distinguished from it. And thus by only changing the form of dressing pickled pork, a family eats it with a good appetite. Whereas if it is dressed always one way, it is apt to cloy, and cause a grumbling for having too often the same food dressed in the same manner. This and many other receits plainly prove, that no one can be duly qualifed to write a book on Country Housewifery, unless he lives in the country, and carries on the farming business, for then he has an opportunity of writing from experience. And if he is informed of (what is called) a serviceable receit, he is then in a way of being capacitated to judge whether he is imposed on or not.

  To make a Pork-pye to be eaten cold.--Cut the meat from off a loin of pork into thin pieces, and the same of veal, both which must be beaten flat with a cleaver. Then mix salt, pepper, minced sage and thyme, with some yolks of eggs, and put it amongst the meat. Next lay your pieces of pork in the crust of a pye, and on them lay pieces of veal, and so on, one after another, till your coffin has its due quantity, and bake it. When cold, fill it with melted butter.

  A Leg of Pork to boil.--Boil a powder'd leg of pork; boil also a handful of sage, and mince it very small. This done, put it into a little strong broth with butter and pepper. This must be mixed with some boiled turnips, and some more melted butter, and lay the same over or upon the leg of pork for being eaten with it.--A second way to boil a leg of pork is, first to stuff it with parsley and sage, and boil it with cabbage; when the cabbage is enough, chop it small and mix it with melted butter.

  A Leg of Pork broiled, according to Rabisha's Receit.--He says, take part of the fillet, skin it, and cut it into thin collops, then hack them thinner with your knife. Then take sage and a little thyme minced exceeding small, with a little powder'd pepper and salt, and strew it over them; then put them on the gridiron, and when broiled on one side, strew the same on the other side. This done, mix mustard, vinegar and sugar, with melted butter.

  How to roast Pork-Steaks.--Cut and hack the steaks, then mince suet with sage, spinage, pepper, salt, and nutmeg, which strew over the stakes, and roll them up. Spit and roast them, and eat them with sauce made of mustard, butter, and sugar.

  To broil Pork Steaks.--The best steaks for this purpose are those cut off a loin of pork; after they are beat thin with the broad part of a cleaver, and strewed over with a mixture of salt and sage minced very small, broil them on a gridiron. When enough done, put over them mustard and vinegar mixed with a little sugar.--A second way is, to make a mixture of sage, parsley, and thyme, chopt very small, with pepper and crums of bread; rub this over the steaks, and broil them; then sauce them with melted butter, vinegar, shalot, gravey, and mustard.

  The Hertfordshire Way of roasting Joints of Pork.-- Some roast, or bake, or boil the butt or gammon part of a porker; if the butt piece is roasted, some stuff it with suet chops very small, eggs, grated bread, shred sage, salt, onions, and pepper. The same they do by the chine, which also is very good stuffed and roasted. But then these two sorts should not be too much salted. The hind and fore loins are likewise excellent meat when roasted, and sauced with a mixture of lemon-peel, mustard, butter, and sugar. When they are roasted about a quarter of an hour, cut the skin or hack it about an inch broad. Others take this way to roast a joint of pork supposing it to be a breast, they will take out the bones in the manner they do the breast-part of venison; and when it has been rubbed over with salt, they will strew over it minced sage and thyme, beaten cloves, mace, and nutmeg. When these are well rubbed in, they will roll it with the skin outward, then tie it about with a string, and put it on a spit long-ways for roasting, and give gravey or apple-sauce to eat with it.

  To salt a Piece of fresh Pork at once for boiling it directly.--Take six ounces of common salt, and mix it with a quarter of an ounce of salt-petre finely beaten to powder, which rub over all parts of a piece of pork, whether it be a small leg or other joint, for the piece should not be large for this quantity of salt. Then flower a linen-cloth pretty much, and tie up the meat close in it, which when boiled will be as salt as if it had been salted some days before. If you think fit, you may leave out the salt-petre; but then you must make use of more of the common salt.

  A second Way to salt a Piece of fresh Pork for boiling.-- This is chiefly done, when time will not permit for salting it regularly; therefore when haste requires it, the water must boil before it is put in, then rub your piece of pork very well with common salt, and boil it, and while it is boiling, you must put salt into the pot by degrees, little by little, till the water or pot liquor is well salted. Cover all close, and the heat will drive the salt through the meat, if the piece is not too big.

  To salt fresh Pork on the Spit.--To do this, boil salt in water to a strong brine. When the pork is heated on the spit, baste it with this hot brine by degrees, and in a very little time it will be salted enough, as you may know by the dry whitish salt scum or scurf that appears on the meat; for by the heat of the fire, the salt is made to enter the fresh pork forthwith; and then you may baste it in the usual manner.

  The Hertfordshire Farmers Wives Way of dressing the Liver and the Crow of a Porker.--The liver, the crow, and the sweet-bread, is the first meat we dress of a hog, for this sort is fit for frying as soon as it is cut out; our farmers wives therefore make no more to do in dressing this, than to cut the liver, the crow, and the sweet-bread, in pieces about two or three inches square, and fry them in the same fat the crow yields; and if they prove too thick she cuts them thinner. When fry'd enough, it is eaten with mustard for an agreeable dinner to a whole family.--A second way to fry liver and crow is, to cut the liver into short thick pieces, because being short and thick they will fry the tenderer, but the sweet-bread and crow rather long ways, about the same bigness; then soak the pieces of liver first in scalding water, and while this is doing, make a composition with eggs, water, flower, salt, shred sage, pepper, and grated bread; in which dip all the pieces of meat, and fry them in lard or butter, over a quick fire. For sauce, melt butter, and mix it with sugar and mustard.

  The Service that souced Pork is of to Farmers and other Families.--The soucing of a hog's head, feet, ears, hocks, guts, &c. is of such importance to a farmer's family, that many set no little value on this great conveniency; because such souced meat is not only the cheapest sort, but is ready at a minute's wanting it, to become a pleasant, wholesome, hearty meal; either eaten cold from the soucing-drink, or being cut into pieces and fry'd. For these reasons it is, that most of the good housewives of farmers who live about forty miles from London, and so on northward, commonly prepare and keep souced pork by them (at times) from about Michaelmas 'till Lady-Day; for that at this season of the year the weather is generally cold enough to agree with soucing-drink for preserving pork in sweetness a month or more together.

  A Country Housewife's Way to make her Soucing-drink, to preserve Pork sweet.--This woman's way was, as she lived near a town, to go to a neighbouring public house, and ask the favour (when she had not the opportunity at home) to have the liberty of putting some water over their grains, after the strong beer was brewed off; for you must know, that most of these publicans have not a full vent for as much small beer as they could brew after their strong, and therefore rather than pay excise for small beer they are not sure to sell, which they leave the grains in a hearty condition, and consequently seldom refuse to give a neighbour leave to run some water through them. Now it is this water or wort, that thus runs through the grains, which is the proper liquor to make soucing-drink of, because it is perfectly new, and free from the fermentation of yeast, for if yeast were put into it, it would be improper for a soucing-drink, as yeast in boiling would rise, and then the fermentation would not only induce staleness, but would give the pork a disagreeable twang. When this is done, she puts a handful of salt or more into about two gallons of this malt-liquor, and boils it; and, when it is cold, it is a soucing-drink, fit for preserving pork sweet in. Or you may boil some bran in it. Or in water you may boil some bran and salt for a soucing-drink; but then the bran must be drained off through a cullender or better through a hair-sieve. But for a further account of making souce-drink, see what William Rabisha says of it.

  Rabisha's Way to make Soucing-drink.--Take, says he, beer brew'd on purpose, then boil a pan of water, throw therein a peck of wheaten bran, and let it boil. Strain it through a hair-sieve, and throw in two handfuls of salt, so mix it with your beer aforesaid, and souce your pork therein. You may also take half a peck of fine flower of oatmeal, mix it with some liquor, and run it through a hair-sieve, and it will cause your souce to be white. Milk and whey is used in this case; but your milk will not keep so long: you may put both in boiling thereof, it will cause it to boil white. Keep your souce close cover'd; and when it begins to sour, you may renew it at your pleasure, with adding fresh liquor.

  To souce a Hog's Head, Feet, Chitterlins, and Hocks, &c.--Boil them till they are so tender that a straw may be run through them, and when cold, put them into the cold soucing-drink; but take care to scum off the fat that in boiling will swim on the top of the liquor, and reserve it to join a greater quantity, to be try'd up or refined for after uses; as for frying of pancakes, or for making crust for pyes, &c.

  Harvest-Men fed in various Manners.--In wheat harvest time, which commonly lasts about a fortnight, our men set out for the field by four of the clock in the morning, and return home about eight at night. In Lent grain harvest time later in a morning, and sooner at night, as the days are shorter. In either, the men generally eat five times a day: At their first setting out, they eat a little bread and cheese or apple-pye, with a draught of small beer, or half a pint of strong each man, in part of his quart for one day: At eight o'clock some send, for breakfast, boiled milk crumbled with bread; others, milk-porridge with bread; others, posset with bread, and bread and cheese besides, or instead of bread and cheese, apple-pasty; others send into the field, for breakfast, hashed or minced meat left the day before; others send it cold (as left) but hashing or mincing is best, because if it is a little tainted, it is thus taken off by a mixture of shred onions and parsley, or with butter and vinegar, which relishes it, and makes it well suffice for a breakfast, and now they drink only small beer. At dinner time, which should be always at one o'clock, the victuals should be in the field; for it was the saying of a notable housewife, that as the men expected it at that hour, if it was not brought accordingly, they would lag in their work, and lose time in expecting it. Broad beans and bacon or pork one day, and beef with carrots, or turnips, or cabbage, or cucumbers, or potatoes, another day, is, with plumb-pudding in wheat-harvest-time, and plain-pudding in Lent harvest, good dinner victuals. But this method of victualling harvest-men is not a general rule; for I know a farmer that rents above a hundred a year in Hertfordshire, and employs half a score hands in harvest time, who kept his men almost a week together on only fat bacon and pudding, and when at other times his wife dressed beef for dinner, she seldom boiled it enough, on purpose to prevent the mens eating too much. Now the flesh of a new killed porker, or that of a fatted old ewe or weather sheep, or of an old fatted cow, comes in a right time for saving the expence of buying meat at market; the dressing of which to the greatest advantage, I have, and shall further give an account of by and bye. At four o'clock in the afternoon, is what we call cheesing-time, that is to say, a time when the men sit on the ground for half an hour to eat bread and cheese with some apple-pasty, and drink some strong beer; then to work again, and hold it till near eight of the clock at night, when all leave off and come home to supper, where is prepared for them, messes of new milk crum'd with bread, or posset sugar'd and crum'd with bread, or fat bacon or pickled pork boiled hot with broad beans; but although fat bacon at night is in common use with some farmers, with roots or with beans, yet others refuse to make this supper victuals, because it is apt to make men sick. No matter, say some, we must give them that which cloys their stomachs soonest. But my way is this: I allow them most nights a supper on hot milk crum'd well with bread, apple-pasty, and bread and cheese if they will eat it.--Others sometimes give harvest-men wigs sop'd in ale for supper, or a seed loaf or cake cut in pieces, done after the same manner.--A yeoman, owner of a farm worth a hundred a year, of more than three parts arable land, who therefore employs about ten harvest-men, feeds them with fresh and salt meat, which is chiefly that of his own providing, by fatting old ewes or weather sheep in summer, for killing in harvest; but whether they be ewes or weathers, they are commonly those that have lost some of their teeth by age; and what of this meat the family does not eat while it is fresh, they make into pyes or pasties, so highly seasoned with pepper and salt, that they will keep sweet and sound a week or two, provided the fly is kept off; but, besides his killing such an old sheep now and then in harvest, he kills one or two porkers, which his family eats fresh as long as it lasts so, and salts the rest: These, with a lot of beef now and then from the butcher's shop, supplies his harvest people all the harvest-time with fresh meat, and for his salt meat he has all the year pickled pork, or bacon, or both by him, which proves a good friend to his pocket.--A small farmer, that employed about four harvest-men, generally boiled oatmeal in skim milk for the mens breakfast, well crum'd with bread, and as soon as they had eaten this, they had pancakes to eat hot after it.--A great farmer had a mess of hot milk got ready for his harvest-men to eat as soon as they arose, and about eight o'clock sent them minced meat, bread and cheese, and pasty.--By this method each man is allowed a quart of strong beer or ale in a day, and is fed five several times, to support him under his early and late hard work in reaping, mowing, loading and unloading of corn, grass, hoeing of turnips, &c. and other slavery; in any of which cases, a brisk foreman (whom in harvest-time we call lord) is a valuable servant; for that on his diligent, careful, nimble performance, depends in a great measure the more work of the rest that follow him, because his pace is a rule to all the company: And it is for these, and other reasons, that such a foreman (who is generally the head plowman) is better worth ten pounds a year wages, than some of the more ignorant, slow, and careless sort are half ten pounds; for such a right workman, with us, is up first in harvest-time, blows his horn to awake and get ready the rest, leads them to their work, and has two paces upon occasion, an ordinary and extraordinary one.--Some also of our Aylsbury-Vale housewives feed their harvest-men with rice-milk, and at other times with furmity.

  The valuable Uses of Cheese to Yeomen and Farmers Families in Harvest-time.--This family article, I think, deserves a paragraph in my book, because cheese is an indispensable necessary food in all yeomens and farmers families throughout the year, but most of all in harvest-time; for so great a stress is then laid on this eatable, that every day while the harvest lasts, the men about four of the clock in the afternoon (as I have before observed) sit down in the field for about half an hour, which they call cheesing-time, by reason that in this space of time they eat a piece of bread and cheese, and commonly drink a pint of strong beer or ale each man, in part of a quart which we allow them a day; and this they punctually observe to do, especially in wheat harvest, because at this time they are obliged to work in harvest the hardest and longest, and therefore more than ordinarily covet this sort of refreshment, as well to ease their backs from their stooping reaping labour, as to refresh their bodies by thus eating and drinking. And as to the management of this cheese diet, I have to observe, that some of our farmers think it no lost time to ride to Baldock-Fair, which lies about five miles from Gaddesden, and is held on the 24th day of February, there to buy Leicester or Warwickshire cheese for harvest and other times, because we imagine we buy it here much cheaper than at any country shops. But to save the cheese-penny in another shape, some yeomen and farmers are so frugal as to keep the thick strong Cheshire cheese, as well as thin cheese in their houses for using the Cheshire at supper, and the thin at other times: Wherefore as cheese is eat at almost every meal in harvest-time, it concerns a yeoman or farmer to keep by them or buy old, and not new cheese; for though new cheese, perhaps, may be bought for a half-penny or more a pound less than old, yet some sort of it will go away near as soon again as old.

  To make Harvest Posset, the Hertfordshire Way.--This is very commonly done for supper, and but seldom for breakfast; because, for the latter, we send into the field either broth made from yesterday's meat crum'd with bread, or milk-porridge with bread; but for supper, we often give the harvest-men a posset crum'd with bread, made in this plain manner: The maid-servant boils new milk, and when it is so done, she puts about a pint of it into each man's wooden dish, and immediately adds a quarter of a pint of stale strong beer, some coarse sugar and crumbled bread, which turns the milk into a posset, and gives the men a palatable supper; but if our country housewife has a mind to make a better posset she may:--Take a quart of new milk, and mix it with a pint of ale, the yolks of eight eggs, and the whites of four, which when beaten must be put in the milk and ale; then add some sugar and nutmeg, and stir it all the while it is on the fire till it is thick (but it must not boil) and it's done for eating; but if you will have the posset richer, use cream instead of milk. Or to make a sack-posset:--Take a quart of milk or cream, boil it with sugar, mace, and nutmeg; then take half a pint of sack, and half a pint of ale, and boil these well together with sugar; then put your milk or cream to your sack and ale in a bason, cover it with a hot dish, and set it two or three hours by a fire before you eat it. Or you may bake a sack-posset thus:--Beat eight eggs, and strain them into a quart of milk or cream, season them with nutmeg and sugar, then put to them a pint of sack, stir them together and put them into a bason, and set it in the oven no hotter than for a custard; let it stand two hours.--Or, grate three penny Naples-biskets, and boil them with nutmeg and sugar in a quart of milk or cream; then warm a pint of sack and put it into a bason, and on that pour your boiled cream by a high fall, when after a little time standing it may be eaten. But for an ordinary sack-posset--Sir Kenelm Digby says, boil a pint of milk, and as soon as it boils take it off, and let it cool a little, for by so doing, says he, the curd will be the tenderer; then pour it into a pot, wherein are two spoonfuls of sack and four of ale, sugar it, and let it stand by a fire-side till you eat it.

  To make Wigs for Harvest-men the Hertfordshire Way.--Our way is to make use of no butter, because we cannot well spare it from market; and therefore we use only a little cream put among new milk, which serves instead of butter; neither do we use any eggs, because this is rather too costly, wherefore we mix only the warm milk with some flower, ale, yeast, carraway-seed, sugar and salt, and knead it into a paste or dough, which, after it has stood to ferment and rise, we make into wigs, without colouring them with yolks of eggs, as the usual way is; neither do we put them into tin pins, but set them on a peal, and lay them to bake at the oven's mouth (as we do our common dough cakes) for about half an hour; and this we generally do about six o'clock in the evening, that they may be hot against the men come home to supper from reaping, when we toss one of these large wigs to each man for his dipping it in a bowl of ale, which serves for an agreeable cooling supper with cheese or other things. Thus, as we think these sort of plain wigs are a cheap and pleasant food to our workmen, our frugal housewives generally make some of them twice a week, sometimes alone, and sometimes they bake them when they bake bread; so that the farmhouse is seldom without some of these wigs, or seed or plumb cake all harvest; for the making of which I shall give directions by and bye, after I have shewed our housewives to make richer wigs, if they think fit.--Take half a peck of flower, and mix it with an egg-shell full of carraway seeds, and half a pound of sugar; then melt twelve ounces of butter in a pint of warm milk, and with three parts of a pint of ale-yeast knead all together into a paste, and after it has lain to ferment and swell, make it into wigs and bake them.--Or, take three quarters of a pound of butter, and mix it with a pottle of fine flower, and half a pound of sugar, nutmeg, mace, and grated ginger, four beaten eggs and half a pint of ale yeast, with a little Canary, if you please: These mix with a little warm milk, and knead the whole into a light dough, to stand about half an hour before a fire to ferment and swell; then just before they go into the oven, wash the wigs over with beaten yolks of eggs; if the oven is quick in fire, they will be baked in half an hour on tin plates.

  A common Country Baker's Way of making Wigs.--This baker lived about a day's journey from London, in the Dunstable road, where he made wigs as well as loaves of bread for sale: Now it was this baker's method to use milk-porridge as one of his chief ingredients in the making of wigs (saying, he thought it help'd to make them whiter, hollower, sweeter, and more substantial, than when milk only is employed for this purpose) with flower, ale-yeast, some sugar, and carraway-seeds; but you must know that the milk-porridge he thus made use of, was from the finest of oatmeal, as it came from Braetch-Mill at Luton in Bedfordshire, where it was ground almost as fine as flower.

  To make a Hertfordshire Seed-cake for Harvest-men.-- This cake is made much after the same manner as wigs are made, by stirring flower, yeast, milk mix'd with some cream, sugar, and carraway-seeds, which, after being kneaded and fermented, is baked in a round, deep, earthen or tin pan, on a hearth, or at the oven's mouth, and serves for beaver victuals upon a change; that is to say, it is sent into the field about four of the clock in the afternoon with some cheese, for the harvest-men to eat this cake dry with, or to dip it in ale; and sometimes it serves for supper victuals, as also for entertaining a neighbour or stranger with a cup of ale; so that a good housewifely farmer's wife is seldom without this cake or wig, or plumb-cake, especially in harvest-time, and thinks this seed-cake good enough for these purposes without eggs or butter, though some of the abler sort add hogs-lard or butter for making it better. In either form it is a very agreeable repast, when every harvest-man is allowed a wooden dish of ale to sop a piece of this in as a cooling beaver or supper, after hard labour in hot weather. Others of our country housewives make use of a tin hoop, and laying doubled brown paper at the bottom of it well flower'd they put the paste into it, and when it is out of the oven they unscrew a pin, and the hoop parts free of the cake. But, for a choice of better sort of seed-cakes, take the following accounts how to make them.

  To make a good Seed-cake.--Work two pounds and a half of fine flower, with a pound and half of fresh butter, seven eggs, a tea-cup full of cream, and three spoonfuls of ale-yeast, into a paste, which set by a fire-side to ferment and rise; then work in a quarter of a pound of carraway comfts; an hour or thereabouts bakes it in a butter'd tin hoop. Or--Mix three grated nutmegs with some beaten mace, and put it to half a peck of flower; then take two pounds of fresh butter, and melt it with two quarts of hot cream, and when cooled, mix it with a pint of yeast, and a pound and half of carraway-seeds, and some chopt orange or lemon peel; knead the whole into a thin paste just before it goes into the oven, and bake it in less than an hour's time: Some add a little sack.

  A Hertfordshire Spice-loaf for Harvest. --This loaf is made with wheat-flower in the shape of a common loaf, and for a large family in the bigness of half a peck one: It must have more yeast work'd into the flower than is allowed for a houshold-bread loaf, because it must be hollowish and spungy, somewhat of the wig kind; then melt butter, and knead it into dough with sugar and carraway seeds, and bake it not quite so long as bread is. This seed loaf, like seed cake, is to be eaten dry, or in slices dip'd and sop'd in ale for beaver or supper, or with cheese or spread butter.

  A Hertfordshire Plumb-cake for Harvest.--This cake is made with a quart of flower, a quartern of currants, or half a pound of Smyrna raisins (for we reckon that currants go as far again as these plumbs in a pudding or cake) a quartern of sugar, four spoonfuls of yeast, some warm milk made better by the addition of a little cream, grated nutmeg, and some carraway-seeds; mix and knead these into a paste, and after it has lain to rise and ferment, make it into a cake and bake it at the oven's mouth, when bread is baked: Such a cake some farmers wives bake twice a week, to have one of them constantly by them during the harvest; not only to give the harvest-men now and then a slice, but is also a sort of entertainment for a neighbouring visiter, as being a ready bit with cheese and a mug of ale, without butter, because, as I said, this must go to market; about half an hour bakes it. But how to make richer plumb cake, the following receit will shew.

  To make a good Currant or Plumb Cake.--You may with half a peck of flower mix one pound of melted butter, two pounds and a half of currants, a little salt, some powder'd cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, half a pound of white sugar, rose-water and ale-yeast; work the whole well till it swells in working, and bake it in a tin hoop; if you will you may add sack. Or--Mix four pounds of flower with twelve eggs, a quarter of a pint of cream, a pound and half of butter, and two powder'd nutmegs; mix the butter cold, and do not wash but rub the currants dry; to these add two pounds of loaf-sugar, half a gill of sack, and some rose-water; knead it well, and bake it half an hour.--Or rub half a pound of butter into half a peck of flower; this done, boi[l] half a pound of butter with cream, let it be luke-warm then mix with it powder'd mace, nutmegs, and hal[f] a pound of fine sugar: The whole being mingled together, put to it half a pint of ale-yeast, four or five eggs, or half a pint of sack, and one pound of currants; this being kneaded, let it lie by a fire-side till it rises, and bake it in a tin hoop. But if any one wants to make a richer plumb-cake than any of these, he may--Mix six pounds of currants with seven pounds of flower, powder'd cloves, mace, and cinnamon, candied lemon-peel, a quart of ale-yeast, whites of eggs, and a pound of butter melted in a quart of cream, with two pounds of sugar.

THIS I take to be one of the best pieces of housewifery belonging to a farmer's, yeoman's, or gentleman's family; because it is in a large family attended with considerable profit, when bacon or pickled pork, salt beef, or any sort of fresh meat is boiled, roasted or baked, and the fat is in quantity enough to be scum'd off and saved: Wherefore she that does not this, but suffers such fat with the pot-liquor to be given to hogs or dogs, is a sorry housewife indeed; and yet as great a fault as this is, there are too many guilty of it.--Or, if they give themselves the trouble of scumming and saving it once, some of the worser sort are apt to neglect it twice; but a good housewife will be sure to let little or none of such fat be spoiled, because a mixture of such fats will, if not used at home, sell to the tallow-chandler for two-pence half-penny or three-pence a pound: But when the fat of roasted or baked meats is saved and try'd up, that is to say, when it is boil'd, scum'd, and after it is settled cold in a glazed earthen pot, and the jelly dross taken from the pure hard fat, it will then keep several months sound and sweet, fit to make good pye-crust, fry pancakes, and be otherwise very serviceable in the kitchen. And the clearer the fat is poured off from its watry dreggy parts, the longer it keeps sound; and for its better coming out of such a glazed pot, it should be just rinced with water as the fat goes into it: Others, when the fat is cold, pour half a pint or more of cold water on its top, for that by this the fat will the easier come loosely out, and if shifted now and then with fresh water, it will be preserved sweet some time. The fats from only boiled bacon or pickled pork are soft fats of the worser sort, yet may serve, when try'd up to fry pancakes, or make ordinary pye-crust for farmers servants and poor mens families; but these are improved when try'd up with the fat of salt beef, or fresh roasted, baked, or boiled meats; however, at worst, these fats will serve for greasing cart-wheels, preserving white-leather harness, and making candles for country villages, &c. 

H OW we try or dry up the pure fat Part of a Porker or Bacon Hog, which we call Lard or Seam.--In a day or two after the hog is killed, we generally try or dry up the fat of it, and begin with tearing off the skinny part of the flair, and cutting off the coarse ends of it, for then there will remain nothing but the pure lardy fat part. This we cut into bits a little bigger than dice, and put them into a metal pot, to heat over a gentle fire to melt by degrees; and as it melts we take it off the fire, and thus we serve it several times, to drain away the fat through a pewter or earthen cullender, by keeping back the gross part with a brass or other ladle; and when the remaining fat becomes somewhat dryish, we put the whole into a cullender, to squeeze out the liquid part, and thus renew the melting and squeezing several times, till no more fat can be forced out. A good housewife commonly lets a sprig (two or three) of rosemary be amongst the fat in melting, for giving the lard an agreeable flavour.

  How we try or dry up the offald fat Part of a Porker or Bacon Pig.--What I call the offald part of a hog is, first, the kell or caul; secondly, the ends of the flair; thirdly, the fat of the guts. If the caul be that of a porker, it is but small enough to put over and cover the haslet, that is to be roasted or baked, for preventing the lean meat being scorched or dried too much, and for keeping the herbs in their place: But if it is that of a bacon hog, the caul is generally large enough to use part of it for this purpose, and part to melt or dry up for keeping fat. Or if none of it is employed this way, the whole is cut into little bits and melted down. Secondly, as the ends of the flair consist of a coarse bloody fat, we generally cut them off from the better fat, and melt them with the caul fat. And, thirdly, we do the same with the thickest end of the belly-piece of a large porker, or bacon hog; with this difference, that as this fat is of a kernelly and harder nature than the other two sorts, we cut it smaller. This done, we melt these last three fats in a pot or kettle, over a gentle fire, and as it melts we squeeze and press it out thro' a cullender by degrees, till nothing is left but the dry dreggy part, which we call crinklings, that are commonly eaten by our plowmen and other servants, with only a little salt strew'd over them. Now these three offald sorts of fat, so melted together, we keep in a glazed earthen pot, by itself, for present occasions, to fry pancakes, make pye-crust, and using it on some other culinary accounts, because this sort of fat will not keep so long sweet, nor is it so white and palatable as the more pure flair fat part is; but as to the gut fat, we generally melt it by itself, and save it for greasing our waggon and cart wheels, for if this was melted with better fat, it would taint it, because it retains the strong scent of the dungy guts.

  How to preserve Hogslard or Seam fresh.--As I said, we seldom do any thing else, for preserving our lard sweet, than to boil it with a little rosemary, and squeeze out the pure from the gross part: But there is an old receit, that says, to preserve lard sweet and fresh for some time, it should be boiled up with a little old verjuice, till all the verjuice is wasted in boiling; then put it into a glazed earthen pot, or into a hog's bladder, and keep it in a dry place, and it will remain untainted from mustiness, or any other ill scent, some years; for if lard is kept in a damp cellar it will grow rank, and if too much in the sun, the same: Therefore keep it in a dry room. Others, instead of rosemary, boil a few bay leaves among the lard, to give it an agreeable flavour. A pint of verjuice is but enough to boil with six pounds of lard, till it is wasted, according to the opinion of some, but I think a lesser quantity of that liquor may serve. Most of the hogslard that is sold in London, is sent out of the country in hogs bladders, because it is the lightest, safest, and cheapest carriage, else it would be sent in glazed earthen pots.

H OW to prepare Guts or Skins for filling them to make Sausages.--Sausages are generally made with sheeps guts, and to prepare them right is the chiefest part of the business: Many authors have wrote on making sausages, but not one of them has told his readers how to prepare skins for them; which deficiency I here undertake to supply, by giving a plain account of it, as it is now in practice.--Take the fresh guts of a sheep, and cut them into fathom or six foot long pieces; one parcel of guts will cut into six or eight such pieces; stroke the dung out, and put them into water just to wet them, then turn them inside-out, by the help of a stick, wash them, and scrape a piece at a time as it lies on a table, with the back of a knife drawn along the inside skin thus turned outwards, and it will come off in two or three times scraping, and without breaking the gut, if it be rightly done; and in the same manner, the outward skin with scraping will come off at the end of the gut; then there will only remain the middle skin, that will appear about the bigness of a wheat straw. And when all the pieces of the guts are thus scraped, cleaned, and prepared, put them into water made just lukewarm, for if it is too hot, they are all spoiled. Now in this lukewarm water the guts must be washed clean; then put them into a glazed earthen pot, with salt enough strewed over them, and they will keep sweet as long as you please. And that the skins may appear truly fine and clear, put one end to your mouth and blow it, and then you may easily perceive whether the gut is entirely free of all outward skin or fur; for if it is nor, it must be presently taken off.

  How to prepare Pork Meat for making it into Sausages.-- The next thing is to prepare the meat for filling the skins with it: For this purpose, a fine hind loin of pork is the best part of a hog, though some make use of a fore loin, but the former exceeds; yet there is a profit to be made sometimes of a fore loin, which cannot be done with the hind loin, and that is, when sausages are made in a town where gentry live, they sometimes bespeak and buy the bones of a fore loin to broil, and then there is the more meat left on them, because for these they generally give an extraordinary price, as the sweetest meat lies next to the bones, and eat somewhat like that of a spare-rib; otherwise the flesh is cut quite off from the bones, as clean as can be well done. The meat, thus taken off the bones, must be cut into little bits, and chopt as small as possible, till a whole bit cannot be found in it bigger than a pea free of its skin, for the skin must be first taken off the loin; and while it is chopping, four or five spoonfuls of water must be now and then mix'd among the meat, for this will cause it to chop the better, increase its gravey, make the sausages eat the more pleasant, and if they are to be sold, will add to their weight. A secret never yet imparted by any author whatsoever, in the exact method this is done; and is of such importance, as occasioned a person to give out selling sausages, merely for want of knowing this piece of good management.

  How a Person set up to sell Sausages in a Market Town in Bedfordshire, and broke for want of knowing how to make them in a right Manner.--One, that was a thorough master of this business in this town, made great quantities of sausages, which he not only sold in the market town he lived in, but carry'd many to other places for publick sale; and as he sold these, with pyes, and tarts, and other pastry ware, he got money apace, and lived in such a manner, as tempted one of his neighbours to endeavour the same. Accordingly this person began to make sausages, but not knowing how to mix water with the meat in chopping, soon gave over his new employ, because his sausages eat dryer, harsher, and were not near so good as the old Sandard's were. There are indeed many receits how to make sausages: One in particular says--The fillet part of a young hog chopt very small, and mixt in the proportion of half a pound of fat to two pounds of lean, season'd with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, and grated bread added to it, will make sausages, if the meat is stuffed into the guts, with salt and water; but no mention is made of what sort of guts, nor how they are to be prepared, nor how to mix the water with the meat in chopping, and therefore is an imperfect one, for meat cannot be chopt full small without watering it in chopping, and if it be beat much to supply watering, the meat will be dryer and eat worse.

  How to make compleat Sausages for Sale, or for a private Family.--The meat being prepared as before mentioned, as it lies on the chopping block, we grate white bread as small as possible, and sprinkle over it; which, when mixed, hollows the meat, makes it go the further, weighs more, and makes the sausages eat the pleasanter, half a pound of such grated bread is enough for one loin of pork; then beat black pepper and Jamaica pepper, as much of the one as the other, and mix them with salt, which sprinkle over the meat and bread, and mix them well with the chopping knife: Then chop green sage very small, and mix this likewise with the meat, though some dry it and rub its powder in, but in this manner the sage is apt to lose some of its virtue; therefore sage is kept dry in its leaves in winter, and chopt as the green sage is, by which means the sage will make an agreeable green spotted appearance through the gut when filled. The mass of meat being thus all got ready, take an instrument, which we call a tin fill-bowl, made hollow and in the shape of a syringe, only wider at top and narrower at bottom, about four inches in length, an inch and half wide at top, and three quarters of an inch wide at bottom. This being filled with the chopt meat, and the little end put into the gut, the meat is forced into it by a finger pushing it down; and when a pound of it is thrust thus into a fathom-long piece of gut, and made all alike round, at every six inches in length a link is twisted off, and a sausage compleated.--Thus, sausages may be made in a good and cheap manner for a gentleman's, yeoman's, and farmer's family, clear of that extraordinary expence that some receits may lead people into; as when white-wine, eggs, oisters, and other chargeable ingredients are made use of: Therefore, those receits that direct the making of sausages in a plain, palatable, and wholesome way, must be the best for a private family's use, as this which directs--To chop a leg of pork very small, and mix it with a sufficient quantity of hog's hard fat, some Jamaica pepper, black pepper, salt, marjoram, and sage, all cut and minced small, which being put into sheeps or hogs guts, makes sausages.

  To make Sausages as good as those from Bologna, according to the receit in The Way to get Wealth.--Take, says this author, the fillets of young porkers, three parts lean, and one fat, to the weight of five and twenty pounds; season it well in the small shredding, and beat it in a mortar with pepper and salt, a little grated nutmeg, and a pint of white-wine mixt with a pint of hog's blood; then stir and beat it all together, till it is very small; add a few sweet herbs, chopt small and bruised, as pennyroyal, sweet marjoram, and winter savory; then with a whalebone bow open the mouths of the guts you are to fill with this meat, and thrust it leisurely down with a clean napkin, lest, forcing it with your hands, you break the gut. Make divisions of what length you think convenient, tying them with fine thread, and dry them in the air two or three days if it be clear and the wind brisk, then hang them in rows at a little distance one from the other in your smoak loft, and when they are well dried, rub off the dust they have contracted with a clean cloth; anoint them over with sweet oil, and cover them with a dry earthen vessel, and, either roasted or boiled, they will equal those so much boasted of from this city in Italy.--Or make use of the gammon part of a bacon hog, which shred small with a like quantity of lard and sweet herbs as above; work it with red-wine and the yolks of eggs, till it becomes a paste fit to be put into skins, so that the sausages ought to be as thick as a child's wrist; then hang them up in a chimney, and when sufficiently dried, they are ready to be eaten with vinegar and oil.--But to make these Bologna sausages keep long, mix as much fat as lean of a porker, and then add to it cloves, pepper, mace, salt, parsley, and sage, all shred small into a paste and fill the biggest guts of a sheep, or instead thereof the guts of an ox; then hang the sausages in a dry place not too near the fire, and they will keep a twelve-month round; their usual size is a foot long, and should be boiled just before eating.--Or Bologna sausages may be made with the lean of beef, whereof the buttock part is best, and is chopt with some bacon fat, and some beef suet, with pepper, cloves, mace, and a little salt-petre and bay-salt, into a paste consistence, it will be fit to fill large skins with; some add the powder of a few dried bay leaves: then dry them in or near a chimney.

  To make Sausages without Skins.--Take the leg of a young porker, and cut all the lean free of skin and strings; then take two pound of beef suet, and shred it small; this done, chop sage and onion, and mix them with pepper, salt, and nutmeg; all which ingredients must be cut and minced small, and when minced small enough, add the yolks of two or three eggs, and make the compost into a paste: Now this paste may be kept sweet a fortnight, and when used, it must be cut into the shape of sausages and fry'd.--Or take the receit with this variation; make use of a leg of pork of a small size, two pounds of suet from an ox, two handfuls of sage, the crumb of a two-penny loaf grated, salt and pepper to your taste, and chop all pretty small together; but, in the first place, be sure to cut out all skin and gristles, and when all is well mixed together knead them into a paste pretty stiff with the yolks of two or three eggs, and roll it (when you are ready to use it) into the shape of sausages, and fry them.

  How to preserve naked Sausages.--To make sausages for keeping them sweet and sound some time, mix the meat pretty high with pepper, salt and herbs, as before directed, then press it down in a glazed earthen pot very close, and they will keep, if season'd enough, almost half a winter good. And when such potted down meat is to be used, take some of it out, roll it in flower in the shape of sausages, and fry them, or broil them: This is the most in practice amongst farmers for their family uses.

  How to preserve Sausages in Links.--If sausages in links are to be kept some time, they may be so done by laying them in a glazed pot, and when they are all placed in it, then pour on them salt water. This method is observed in particular by those who make and sell sausages for their livelihood, because if they cannot sell them quickly, they preserve them this way; whereby the sausages may not lose any thing of their weight.--Another receit says, make use of double the weight of fat to the lean of pork, and mix with four pounds weight of this meat a nutmeg in powder, and as much cloves and mace as the nutmeg, with pepper and salt; then chop a handful of sage, a small parcel of thyme, and mix the whole with a handful of grated bread, all mixed very small, and put into skins. Thus far the receits are pretty well; but here is no mention made how to chop the meat with water, how to prepare the skins, nor how to fill them, &c. &c.

  To make Sausages by an old Receit.--It says, take the largest chine of pork, and first with your knife cut the lean thereof into slices, and spread it over the bottom of a dish; then take the fat of the chine, and cut it in the very same manner, and spread it upon the lean; then cut more lean, and spread it upon the fat; and thus lay one lean upon another fat, till your quantity of pork is shred, observing to begin and end with the lean; then with a sharp knife cut it through and through divers ways, and mix it all well together; then take store of sage, and shred it exceeding small, and mix it with the flesh; then give it a good seasoning of pepper and salt, take the guts made as long as possible, and not cut in pieces as for puddings, first blow them well to make the meat slip, and fill them; which done, take thread, and with it divide them into several links as you please, then hang them up in the corner of some chimney clean swept, where they may take the air of the fire, and let them dry there at least four days before any be eaten; and when they are served up, let them be either fry'd or broiled on a gridiron, or else roasted about a capon.

  Rabisha's Receit to make Sausages of Pork, or with the Flesh of a Fowl or Rabbit.--Take pork, but not as much fat as lean, mince them exceeding small together; then take part of the flair of pork in bits about the bigness of the top of a finger, season it with minced sage, good store of pepper and salt, some cloves and mace; then take small sheeps guts and cleanse them, so fill them with your funnel, always putting some of the pieces of flair between the minced; you may sprinkle a little wine on the top of your sausage meat, and it will fill the better. I have made (says he) rich sausages of capons and rabbits flesh, and could shew a receit for it; but allow, that no flesh eats so savoury in a sausage as pork, by reason sage and pepper are not so suitable to the other two sorts. Tie up the sausages in links, and keep them for use.

H OW to prepare Skins for filling them to make Black Hogs Puddings.--To prepare these in a pure sweet housewifely manner, the guts of a barrow hog should be extraordinarily well cleansed; for which purpose, one person should hold open a gut, while another by a funnel pours water into it, for driving and washing out all the dung, and is what must be nicely done, till the gut is clean emptied, and discharged of all the filth; then we turn it inside-out, and wash it thoroughly two or three times; at last we scour all the guts well with salt, and put them into a tub of cold water, where they are to lie twelve hours, and then this first water is to be thrown away, and fresh put in its room, and so on every twelve hours, for three or four days together; or better, if it be so done a whole week.

  How to prepare Meat for filling Skins with it to make Black Hogs Puddings.--As soon as the hog is stuck by the butcher, the blood should be catched in a glazed earthen pot, some salt first put into it, and stirred about all the while with a wooden paddle. When you have thus got the blood, the salt will preserve it sweet without clotting a week together in winter; then get ready a composition of meat for filling your prepared hogs guts with it. And to do it, boil whole oatmeal, or what we call grouts, in water only, a wallop or two, and immediately take it off the fire, for emptying both oatmeal and water into an earthen glazed pot or pan, wherein some salt is first put; here let it lie all night to harden; next morning mix as much blood with the oatmeal as will colour it, and add to it some crumbled bread, pennyroyal, and onion cut small, with some chopt bits of hogs hard fat. These being all well mixed together, begin to fill a gut a yard long, with the same tin fill-bowl instrument that you did the sausages with, and when it is about three parts filled, and squeezed all of a thickness, tie each gut so filled at each end with thrum-thread; and while water is boiling, put these puddings into it, and boil them till they become dark colour'd and tender, which will be in about an hour's time; then take them out of the water, and while they are hot, twist them into links, ready to be dressed, by either broiling or frying them.--Thus black hogs puddings may be made in the very best housewifely manner for cheapness, and yet good enough for a farmer's family, or for sale: Not but that there are several other ways to make black hogs puddings, according to different receits. One whereof says--Grind oatmeal a little, and add to every quart of it the inside of a half-penny loaf grated, both which ingredients are to lie soaking in milk twelve hours, and after that twelve hours more in warm'd hog's blood; then mix chopt fat with pennyroyal and winter savory, and stir the whole together with sprinkled salt. The meat thus made, it says, guts are to be filled with it, and when tied up in lengths, they must be boiled and hung up near a chimney to dry.-- Another says, boil a haslet in about five gallons of water till tender, then drain out the liquor, and while it is boiling, put in a peck of whole oatmeal, which is to boil but fifteen minutes: Then let the grouts and water stand cover'd in a pot about six hours, and with half the oatmeal mix thyme, pennyroyal, parsley, cloves, mace, and salt, all minced small with a quart of hogs blood and some hogs fat of the flair cut into dice bits; which put into the guts, till every gut is three parts of it filled, and then put the puddings into boiling water to boil thirty minutes, pricking them now and then to prevent their bursting; when boiled, lay them on clean straw, and with the rest of the oatmeal make white hogs puddings.--Another says, beat a quart of cream, and as much sheeps blood, with ten eggs; this done, stir into it grated bread and oatmeal finely beaten, each a like quantity; then with powdered cloves, mace, nutmeg, marjoram, lemon, thyme, pennyroyal and salt, make a mixture, and when all is mixed, fill the guts, and boil them directly.--Another says, boil the liver of a hog till it is enough, and bruise it in a mortar with half the quantity of hogs fat cut small; mix these with hog's, goose, or sheep's blood, salt, pennyroyal, butter'd yolks of eggs, some spice, and some oatmeal grouts just cut in the mill, after being first soaked twenty hours in water: When all these are brought into a requisite consistence, put it into the guts, tie them up, and boil them in a kettle of water with hay at bottom; when swell'd enough, dry them on hay.

  How to prepare Skins for making White Hogs Puddings.--As the eating variety of viands enlarges the appetite, our country housewife may make white hogs puddings as well as black ones; and indeed, it is the more necessary so to do, where persons have an aversion to the eating of blood, as many have. Good wholesome white hogs puddings may be eaten with pleasure, with a very little trouble of cooking them, for on a gridiron they are presently broiled: But to make these good as well as cheap, is the art of the housewife; and that she may do all this, I here present her with a receit that has been in practice many years with a frugal manager, as follows, viz.--Take hogs guts, and after the dung is washed out of them, scour them well with salt, then turn them once a day, and shift and wash them twice a day in spring water for a week together, to soak out all the tincture of the dung, and make them white. It is true, that many stand not on this nicety, but scour, wash, and fill the guts in a day or two after they are begun with; however, by the way, this is a sort of sluttish proceeding, for if the gut is not made thoroughly white and sweet, the meat cannot be agreeable.

  How to prepare the Meat for filling Skins to make White Hogs Puddings.--This receit as well as my first for making black hogs puddings are genuine sorts, calculated for the use of a country family, or for common sale, because they are composed of cheap, sweet, and palatable ingredients; for which purpose, let our country housewife provide herself with a pottle of grouts or whole oatmeal, half a pound of white sugar, half a pound of currants, the crumb of a two-penny white loaf, and three quarters of a pound of hogs fat chopt; the oatmeal must be boiled over night, in as little water as will just suffice, and this only for a quarter of an hour, and by morning it will be in right order, neither too hard nor too soft. Next morning therefore mix all the ingredients with cold new milk, and some Jamaica spice in powder, into a pudding consistence, and put it into the prepared hogs guts, after the same manner as was done for sausages of sheeps guts; and observe, that for these white puddings we make use of only the smallest guts, for if they were of the larger sort, they would take up too much of the meat. The guts being thus filled, boil them in yard-long pieces, about three quarters of an hour at most, for these must not be boiled so long as black puddings; and as they boil, they must be reared up with a fork to the top of the water now and then, and pricked with a fine fork to prevent their bursting. This done, take them out of the kettle with a stick, and lay them on wheat straw first put at the bottom of a basket; then with thrum-thread, and while the puddings are full hot, tie them up in links, two, three, or four in a bunch, and place them singly on a table. Thus the process of this receit is finished under a plain preparation, free of those costly compositions with which several receits to make white hogs puddings are stuffed, as may appear by the following accounts of them, viz.--Mix some of the finest white crumb of bread with a little flower, mace, and nutmeg, steep these in milk to become a pappy consistence: This done, add four ounces of currants, and as much almonds, marrow, and sugar, which beat and thoroughly mix together for filling hogs guts with it; they must be boiled, and the puddings afterwards kept in a dry place till used.--Another receit directs to make use of twelve or more eggs, and half the whites, which are to be beat up, and when a quart of cream boils, stir in the eggs on a gentle fire; to this must be added, when the cream is cooled, a pound of grated bread and nutmegs, two pounds of chopt suet, and half a pound of sweet almonds minced and beat fine with orange or rose water, salt and sugar, with which fill the guts and boil them, and prick them as they boil to keep them from breaking.

  How to make white Hogs Puddings by an ancient Receit.--Steep grouts in milk twelve hours, then boil a pint of cream, and put these grouts into it, and let them soak here twelve hours more; then put to this the yolks of eggs, a little pepper, cloves, mace, saffron, currants, sugar, salt, and some swines suet, or for want of this, beef suet; all these being prepared according to art, fill the guts with this mixture, and boil the puddings on a gentle fire, and as they swell, prick them with a great pin, or a small awl, to keep them from bursting; and when you are to serve them on a table, first boil them a little, then take them out, and toast them brown before a fire, and so serve them, trimming the edge of the dish either with salt or sugar.--But here is no mention made how the hogs guts are to be prepared, which is a strange deficiency, and seems as if the authors were persons ignorant of the matter, for neither ancient nor modern receits shew this first and most necessary article.

  How to make Gut Puddings with Hog's Liver, by an ancient Author.--Take, says this author, the liver of a fat hog and parboil it, then shred it small, and afterwards beat it in a mortar till it is very fine; then mix it with cream, and put to it six yolks of eggs and two whites, and the grated crumb of a half-penny loaf, with good store of currants, dates, cloves, mace, sugar, saffron, and salt, and the best swines suet or beef suet; but beef suet is the more wholesome, and less loathing; then after it has stood a while fill the guts with it, and boil them as before shewed: And when you are to serve them to the table, first boil them a little, and lay them on a gridiron to broil gently, but do not scorch them, nor in any wise break their skins, which is to be prevented by often turning and tossing them on the gridiron, and keeping a slow fire.

  To make Gut Puddings with Hog's Liver, by one new and two old Receits.--Take a pound of beef suet, and mince it with the crumb of a two-penny white loaf small enough to pass through a cullender; then boil a pound of hog's liver, which grate and sift very fine. This done, boil a quart of cream with some mace, and grate a nutmeg into it; mix all this with six eggs, currants, a little salt, and rose-water, into a pudding consistence, and fill hogs guts with it.--This receit seems to me to be the last ancient one reformed, as being somewhat better put together in a truer proportion of ingredients. But to shew the maker of a hog's liver pudding in a more particular manner, I shall add the two following old receits, viz.--Boil a hog's liver very dry, when cold grate it, and take as much grated manchet as liver; sift them through a cullender, and season it with cloves, mace, cinnamon, and as much nutmeg as of all the other; half a pound of sugar, and a pound and half of currants, half a pint of rose-water, two pounds of beef suet minced small, eight eggs, put away the whites of four; temper your bread and liver with these eggs, rose-water, and as much sweet cream as will make it something stiff; then cut the small guts of a hog about a foot long, fill them about three quarters full of the aforesaid stuff; tie both ends together, and boil them in a kettle of fair water, with a pewter dish under them with the bottom upwards, and it will keep your puddings from breaking; when the water boils, put in your puddings, let them boil softly a quarter of an hour, and take them up; and so you may keep them in a dry place a week or more: when you spend them, you must broil them.--The other receit runs thus, viz. Boil a hog's liver well, let it be thoroughly cold, then grate it like bread; then take grated bread, new milk, the fat of a hog minced fine, and put it to the bread and the liver, the more the better, divide it into two parts, take store of herbs that are well dried, mince them fine, put the herbs into one part, with nutmeg, mace, pepper, anniseed, rose-water, cream and eggs; wash the skins, and then fill them up, and let them boil enough: To the other part, put barberries, sliced dates, currants, new milk and eggs, and work them as the other.

  To make Hogs Guts Puddings with Hogs Humbles.--After the hogs humbles are tender boiled, take some of the lights, with the heart, and all the flesh about them, picking them from all the sinewy skins; then chop the meat as small as you can, and put to it a little of the liver very finely searsed, some grated nutmeg, four or five yolks of eggs, a pint of good cream; two or three spoonfuls of sack, sugar, cloves, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, carraway seeds, a little rose-water, good store of hog's fat, and some salt; roll it in rolls two hours before you go to fill them in the guts, and lay the guts to steep in rose-water till you fill them. 

H OW to make Chitterlins.--These, if made as they should be, are pleasant and hearty victuals; and that they may be such, take the guts of a barrow hog, a year, or a year and half old, especially of one well fatted with barley meal, oatmeal, or pease; for these guts will eat sweeter, than if the beast is fed with beans or a ranker food. In the first place, after the guts are cleansed from their dung, they must be turned inside out, and well scower'd with salt; then put them into cold spring water, and for three days together they must be shifted into fresh water twice a day, and turned and scoured with salt several times, till they are got thoroughly clean and sweet. This done, the smaller guts are generally platted or woven together, and tied in a knot at their ends, in order to keep in their fat, while they are boiling. Then, on a clear fire, boil both small and great guts four hours for making them rightly tender, though some boil them only two or three; but this is too short a time for causing such tough meat to eat soft and palatable; and if you put some milk into the water they are boiled in, it will add to their whiteness and sweetness of taste: But some, after the guts are clear'd of their dung, and at their first scouring with salt, will with the salt rub them with sage: Others boil sage in their water to take off their hogoo, for the preparation of chitterlins will prove the cleanliness or sluttishness of a housewife, as much as any meat whatsoever will.

  To make a Chitterlin Pye.--This may be made a delicious family pye, if the chitterlins be duly prepared according to the foregoing receit; then chop and mince them with some offald meat of the hog; this done, put it into a paste laid on the bottom of a pan; and on the meat put some minced apples, currants, plumbs, powder'd coriander and carraway seeds, Jamaica spice, and nutmegs grated; then lay your cover of paste over all, and bake it. Others make use of no offald meat, but make the pye with only chitterlins and the other ingredients, and with the maw or mugget of the hog, which mugget being first skinned and boiled with the chitterlins, and chopt and made into a pye with them, will become a hearty and pleasant food for either a farmer's, a yeoman's, or a gentleman's family. It is true, that in harvest time, our servant maid is rather too busy to employ so much of her time, as chitterlins require for cleaning them; besides which, the very hot weather, that generally happens at this time of the year, is another discouragement; but at other times, when the weather is cooler, it is ill housewifery to throw away the guts of a sizeable porker or bacon hog.

  To boil, broil, or fry Chitterlins.--Is another preparation, and the most common way of dressing them of all others; after they have been scoured with salt, and boiled the several hours before mentioned, they are presently cook'd and made ready for a breakfast, dinner, or supper, by boiling them on a gridiron, or frying them till they are brown; but boiling them is most in use with some farmers wives, and when they are so done, they will not eat right, unless boiled exceeding tender, and eaten with mustard. 

THE necessary Uses of Bacon.--Bacon is a serviceable, palatable, profitable, and clean meat, for a ready use in a country house: Ready I say, because it requires not to be kept in a cellar, or at any distance from a kitchen or chamber, but may be had at all times of the year for being cut to broil, fry, boil, or bake; and if it is not in the house, it is ready at the next chandler's shop. For bacon is so universally traded in, that it may be had at almost any part of the kingdom; and so serviceable to both rich and poor, that it saves much expence in firing, time, and trouble, is a very palatable viand, and the more so, as it agrees with fowls, veal, pancakes, beans, &c. And it is so profitable, that like pickled pork, it saves much in a numerous family, by preventing the large total of a butcher's bill; for bacon in many farmers houses is the stay of the family. Where there is bread and bacon enough, there is no want; for these satiate the keenest appetite in a little time, will bear living on the longest of any meat, with a little change of another sort. In the northern parts of England, thousands of families eat little other meat than bacon; and indeed, in the southern parts, more than ever live on bacon, or pickled pork, or on both, since trade has lessened, and the number of families increased. One of the biggest and ablest farmers in our part of Hertfordshire fed his harvest-men most part of the harvest time with bacon. Near Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, a farmer that kept five horses, and rented a hundred a year, gave his servants hardly any other meat all the year than hogs flesh and old mutton. A Hertfordshire yeoman, that occupies his own estate of about a hundred and fifty pounds a year, kills five large bacon hogs, and five large porkers in a year, and now and then an old toothless ewe fatted, which they would for the most part make into pasties; and by the agreeable sweetness of the hogslard, the pyes proved so short and pleasant, that his people generally eat them greedily; for this yeoman, like many others, was afraid of a butcher's large bill.

  The Hertfordshire Way of curing Bacon for a private Family.--This is the best way of all others; for where the bacon is rightly cured, the fat will look clear, and eat hard and sweet, and I may assuredly add, that it will keep longer sound than any other sort of bacon whatso[e]ver. For bacon, we seldom kill a hog under a year old, but many older, till some weigh fifty or sixty stone, for we cannot have too fat nor too large a flitch. And that it may be the safer and better cured, our season for killing is, from Allhollantide to Lady-day, when the weather is generally cool enough for this purpose. In Hertfordshire we generally singe or burn the hair off our bacon, and when it is so done, we hang up the hog, and let it remain hanging all night; next morning we cut out the whole chine, two spare-ribs, two but-pieces, two blade bones, and two short ribs, for we leave no more bone in the flitches than we can help. Then we rub the two flitches of a thirty, or forty, or fifty, or sixty stone hog, with a sprinkling of salt on the fleshy sides, and let them lie singly on boards a day, or a day and a night, for causing the bloody juice to drain out of them; which when discharged, we employ two ounces of salt-petre finely powder'd to the flitches of a thirty stone hog, and so in proportion to a larger one: Then we presently make use of a peck of common salt, a small part of which we rub the skinny sides with, the rest on the fleshy sides, and lay the skinny side of one flitch on the fleshy side of the other, and so let them remain ten days before we salt them again; and then we lay on half a peck of more salt, and put the bottom flitch on the top one, to lie together ten days or more: At the end of which time, we hang them up in our wide country chimney corners to dry for a week or two, or three; if the chimney is a very wide one, and a slow fire is left, they may hang the longer, but if it be a narrow one, the less time; in either case, if the flitches are heated too much, they will rust and spoil. Hence it is, that when we kill a thirty or forty stone hog in March or April, we let the flitches hang but three or four days in the chimney corner, and then lay them upon a rack, that is fixed over the kitchen, to dry leisurely; for at this time of year the air alone is almost sufficient to dry them. By this method our country bacon is salted and dry'd very white and sweet, free of that nasty, unwholesome, unpleasant smoak twang, which the ignorant regard not, when the knowing refuse it.

  Bacon made in several Parts of the West Country.--In a certain part of this country, after the flitches have been a little salted, and laid on a little descent for the bloody juice to drain off, the next day they mix some salt-petre with as much sal prunella, and rub it on both sides of the flitches. Next day after they mix some bay salt among their common salt, and salt the flitches well, and while they lie salted one upon another for two or three days, they shift their posture, and so on for two or three weeks, at the end of which they hang them upright over an oven, and in six weeks time they will be very sweetly and whitely cured.--In another part, they kill a hog in the evening, cut him out next morning, and throw the flitches into a strong brine to lie a few hours; they then take them out, and rub on two large flitches four ounces of powder'd salt-petre, then immediately salt them well with all natural salt, and let them lie so three weeks, shifting them once or twice in that time, before they hang them up in their chimneys to dry. But some let their flitches lie ten hours in brine, then salt them, and let them lie a month salted; when they take and smoak them a day and a night, or more, as the weather is more or less open.--In another part, as in Wiltshire, they kill hogs for bacon almost all the year, and send great quantities of it to London. In summer they kill in the evening, and strew some fine powder'd pepper over the inside of the carcase very lightly, for preventing the flies damage; next morning they cut it out, and lay it in brine six hours, to discharge the bloody part of the flesh; then with a mixture of some powder'd salt-petre and common salt they salt the flitches soundly and lay them one upon another, and shift every second day, laying the bottom flitch uppermost, and salting them more at three different times in a fortnight; at the end of which time, they strew over every flitch some bean flower, to give the bacon a fine brown or golden colour, keep it the better from rusting, and for forwarding its drying; then they hang the flitches over one another, in a very great chimney or smoak-room, to dry leisurely a week or two. And thus their great hogs, that weigh some above sixty stone, at eight pounds to the stone, are ready to be cut for bacon in a month or six weeks time. But even these are not such quick ways to prepare bacon for a market as is practised in another part, where their wash-fatting of hogs, their salting and quick drying, give the bacon a sweetish taste, and an artificial hardness and colour, in order to take the eye of the buyer; but in the pot, in the pan, and on the gridiron, it shews its loose nature, by its ready and easy parting with much of its fat, to the loss of the owner.

  What I was told by a London Seller of Bacon.--This person in conversation, little mistrusting who he told the story to, was free in telling me, that some in very open weather begin to kill their hogs about three o'clock in the morning, and cut them out at seven or eight o'clock at night; then directly throw the flitches into a very strong pickle for five, six, or seven days; then smoak them twelve or four and twenty hours, and away to market with them. Otherwise, when they take them out of the pickle, they salt the flitches for four and twenty hours, then shift and salt them again for as long a time; next they hang them in their smoak-room for a little while, and send them to market. These ways, he said, are sometimes practised when there is a quick sale for bacon; but what must we call this? It hardly deserves the name of bacon, rather the name of pork-bacon, and is a most profitable sort for the seller; for it will weigh to his satisfaction, and may eat sweet and good for present spending, particularly in pease and beans season, but in course must grow rank if kept long, because, as one said, the fat of such bacon is so little cured, that it is rather tallow than true bacon. Therefore, when such bacon cannot be vended at London, much of it is sent to country markets, for selling it to poor people at low prices, to prevent its spoiling to intire loss. But this is not the case of all the London-made bacon, for I am very sensible, that there are vast numbers of their wash-fed flitches of bacon laid in salt for two or three months together in their cellars, piled up one upon another, and shifted at times for preparing and curing them in their smoak-rooms, and undoubtedly may be good bacon. As to their smoak room, it is a profitable contrivance, because they have plenty of smoak at a cheap rate, by their burning of saw-dust, old spokes of wheels, &c. without any excessive heat of fire: And thus they dry several large flitches at a time as leisurely or as quick as they please; and thereby the bacon may be impregnated with smoak to such a degree, as will make it want the less salt, give the outside of it a golden colour, and help the better to cure it for keeping some time; but then they cannot dry the bacon so white, as we do in our large country chimneys, nor cure it so fine as we can; nor do they preserve it in so sweet and delicate a manner, as is done in the country.

  The Practice of curing Bacon in some Country Towns.-- When a hog is cut out, they throw it into brine for three hours, and then salt it for two or more months, and just before they hang them up in their smoak-room they wash their flitches in fair water, because the salt that remains without-side of them would else help to rust the bacon. And although the flitches are yellowish, when they come out of the smoak-room, yet if they are hung up in a large chimney corner, the fire will add a whiteness to them.

  A Farmer's Wife's true Country Way of preserving Bacon in a white Colour.--This is a matter of importance, because it is not only a cure to bacon, by salting it for a month and drying it well, but likewise to preserve it white, sweet, and sound, for a considerable time after: Which to do effectually, our country housewife, after drying the flitches leisurely for three weeks or a month in a chimney corner, by a wood fire, free of smoak, in a moderate degree of heat, takes care, as soon as the bread is drawn out of the oven, to put some wheat straw into it, for divesting it of all humidity and thoroughly drying it; this done, she lays some of it at the bottom of a chest kept in her chamber under the bed, and on that the skinny side of a flitch of bacon; then she puts another layer of dried straw on this, and a second flitch upon that: And if she has several flitches of bacon to preserve, she thus lays one flitch upon another with straw between them, and never shifts the straw, but cuts the bacon as she wants it for her private family. And I do avouch it for truth, that of all the bacon I ever eat in my travels, I never met with any that out-did this sort for palatableness, firmness, cleanness, and whiteness of flesh; and am not a little surprised to find, that no author I have hitherto read has taken the least notice of this most excellent way of preserving bacon. And what consequence this way of drying and preserving bacon is of, I shall shew by what follows, viz.

  How a Gentleman living in the north-west Part of England would not suffer his Bacon Hogs to singed, on Purpose to avoid the ill Qualities of the Smoak.--This curious gentleman, owner of a large landed estate, was a person who made it the greatest pleasure of his life, to improve and enjoy one of his farms, of about 50 £. a year, which he kept in his own hands. This gentleman, having a due knowledge of the ill effects of smoak, would not suffer those hogs he killed for bacon to be singed, but scalded them as we in Hertfordshire do our porkers, not only for avoiding the nasty unsavoury tang that smoak impregnates the rind or skin and flesh of a hog with, but also for avoiding the unwholesome qualities that attend all singed, smoaked bacon, when eaten with fowls, veal, or other viands; for that he thought such smoaked bacon gives these meats a disagreeable relish, and makes them become somewhat offensive to both palate and stomach. And since such smoaky bacon is as unwholesome as unsavoury, it ought to be the more refused; and the fine white dried bacon, free of that pernicious smoaky quality, preferred to it. For smoak, by naturalists, is defined to be a stupifying keen fume or vapour, full of dark sulphurous excrements, void of all real virtues, and very pernicious to health; for that it proceeds from those poisonous juices that the fire and air send forth. Fire, says one of these virtuosi, divides and separates the forms and properties of nature, and manifests both vices and virtues of things, which so long as they remained in one body intire, nothing of this pernicious quality has been seen or known. Smoak therefore, says he, is an excrement that all people endeavour to avoid, as being the most prejudicial to the fine volatile spirits, and therefore most offensive to the eyes; for they are the gates of the whole body, where the natural spirits have their ingress, egress, and regress, and for this cause, smoak first offends the eyes, and so does any other stupifying fume or vapour, either internally or externally. Therefore when any eat ill prepared food, or drink the like drink, and when the heat of the stomach and concoctive faculty separate such foods and drinks, they do as naturally send up into the head gross excrementous vapours, very offensive to nature, and especially to the eyes; for smoak contains in it two poisonous qualities that are of a bitter and astringent nature.

  How the same Gentleman scalds his Hogs.--For these reasons, this gentleman scalds his bacon hogs thus; when the hot water is ready, in that degree of heat as will scald the hair, he puts into a pail-full of it two or three handfuls of oatmeal-dust, which is what remains after the oatmeal is made. This water, so dusted, he puts over the dead hog, as it lies upon a bench or form, and as the dust is well mixed with it, it will lodge at the bottom of the hair, and cause the water to have the greater effect in making it come regularly and easily off, better than the common way of doing it only with hot water. In this work the butcher uses an iron instrument, somewhat like a horse's curry-comb, that has two edges, but no teeth. This scrapes off the loosen'd hair, and then a knife follows which cleans the skin and compleats the work; and when one side of the hog is thus done, they lay a little straw at bottom, and turn the lower side uppermost, to be scraped and cleaned as the other was. This same way is made use of in some parts of the north for both baconers and porkers, with good reason, for it makes the bacon look white, and take salt better than if singed. Thus prepared, it will not damage soup or broth, as they are dried free of any burnt tang, and therefore fitter to be boiled with fowls, veal, beans, &c. This is much the better way than to scald the hair off (as we do in Hertfordshire) by putting the dead hog into a tub or cistern of scalding water, which is a sort of parboiling, and undoubtedly renders any bacon or pork so served, subject to keep the less time sound; for the hulls or dust of the oatmeal serves, in this case, instead of resin.

  Fatting Hogs for Bacon or Pork in London.--A London distiller told me, that although he did not keep any hogs, yet he knew one that kept eight hundred by him at once, at some time of the year, for fattening them to sell for baconers or porkers: When porkers sold well, he fatted his hogs accordingly; if baconers sold well, he fatted them accordingly; and said, there was no sweeter pork or bacon than these hogs make, which are fatted with only hot wash and grains, being as sweet as those fatted in the country with barley-meal, but then (as he said) their bacon will not keep so long sound as the country-fed bacon will, nor will it retain its fat in boiling like that. And no wonder it is so, if it is true, as I have been informed, that some feeders of hogs with distillers hot wash and grains have killed their hogs and made them into bacon in a fortnight's time, by first laying the flitches in a very strong brine three days, seven in salt, and three in a smoak-room, at the end of which time they were carry'd to market for sale; so that in about a fortnight such bacon is compleatly made and sold. And although salt-petre makes part of their brine, and some of it is mixt with common salt afterwards, to salt down their flitches, by which they stiffen their bacon fat, and give it a reddish cast, yet such fat will boil more out than that from bacon made from the feed of pease or beans, &c.

  The Care and Art made use of by a Country Housewife in curing her Flitches of Bacon.--As soon as her hog was cut out, she strewed some salt over the fleshy sides of the flitches over night, to extract and drain out the bloody juice of them; next morning she laid one of the flitches on a table, and opened a place in the shoulder part with a knife, in which she forced in some salt, for here is the most dangerous place of breeding taint; when this was done, she did the like by the other flitch, and then laid a peck of salt over both the flitches, which weighed near thirty stone; this done, she laid one flitch upon the other, the skinny side on the fleshy side, and the tail of the upper one to the head-part of the under one; at the week's end she shifted the undermost by laying it uppermost, and where she perceived a barish place, she strewed some more salt over it; this she did twice in two weeks more, and when the flitches had thus lain three weeks in all, she hung them up to dry near her wide chimney, by a wood fire that burnt leisurely.

  N. B. Next to the bone in a flitch of bacon is the greatest danger of taint, and therefore she applied more salt-petre than ordinary, as well as common salt, to this part.

  Why a Sow is better to make Bacon of than pickled Pork.--This as well as hundreds of other useful matters, in country housewifery, were never exposed in print. A sow by being made bacon of, her flesh will eat shorter than if it was pickled for pork, because both the salting and drying causes it. Besides which, the belly-piece of a fatted bacon hog is almost all fat, and is the toughest part of the carcase; which when melted, near half of it will become a coarse lard, good enough for present spending, to fry pancakes, and make ordinary pye-crust, &c. But when the flesh of a sow is pickled for pork, this tough fat belly-piece is pickled with the rest of the carcase. And although it be an old sow that is to be made bacon of, she will, by being baconed, eat very tender, as having got new young flesh in fatting. Such a sort of case as this has caused a dispute between a man and his wife: Says the woman, I will have the skin of my old sow (for she was seven years old) taken off, and pickle her flesh for pork. No, said the husband, she will make better bacon. And it proved so, for I heard the woman say, that nothing eat tenderer or sweeter.--But observe, that whether a sow be killed for pickled pork or for bacon, it concerns every owner of such sow, that she be not killed in brimming-time; for if she is, her flesh, whether pickled as pork, or dry'd for bacon, will assuredly eat rank and very unsavoury; which evil to prevent, we either have such a sow spayed before fatting, or boar her, and kill her fatted about the end of eight weeks, which is about the expiration of half her time: Or if she is fatted without boaring, we kill her at ten days end, after her brimming is over, because there is an interval of 21 days between each brimming or boaring time. This is what I duly observe myself, in fatting of a sow, by managing her according to one of these three ways, for I have practised all of them, and have therefore further to say, That as spaying of a sow is a somewhat hazardous operation, it is not so much in use of late as formerly, because many have died by it, either by the unskilfulness of the operator, or by the mismanagement of such a sow afterwards.--These material articles are certainly so necessary to be known and observed, that if I had not wrote them, my book must have been so much the more imperfect.

  A black Hog of the foreign Breed was killed with so thick a Skin, that it was thought it would be worth more to sell to the Saddler than to eat as Rind to Bacon.--A Farmer, that kept the wild sort of breed of hogs, fatted one that weighed 35 stone, for bacon, which had so thick a skin, as was thought by his neighbours would have sold for more money than to eat it, as rind to bacon, because such a thick skin would have tann'd into a good substance, very fit for the saddlers use, who give the most money for hogskins of any tradesmen. Therefore such a very thick skin (especially if it be of a very old hog) is better sold to the saddler, and the flesh pickled for pork.

  How a Quaker living at Eaton in Bedfordshire used to prepare his Bacon for drying and keeping.--It was the practice of this man, for his own family's use, to wash his flitches of bacon very clean, just before he hung them up to dry; and when he was asked, Why he differ'd, in this action, from all his neighbours? he said, He could not find what good a crust of salt did his bacon, after it had lain a month under it, for that in this time the flesh had had all the virtue it could have of the salt; and said, that by so doing he could eat his bacon with less waste of salt than others did, and much cleaner.

  How a Country Bacon-monger left off smoaking his Bacon, to dry it without Smoak.--This was done in Buckinghamshire, where a publican bacon-monger, every year, is said to kill 100 hogs for making bacon of them. It was this person that made an attempt, in imitation of the London bacon-man, to dry his bacon in a smoak-room, by burning sawdust in the same. Now, whether he managed the drying art as they do, I cannot say; but this I know, that he was soon out of love with his new way of hastily drying bacon altogether in a smoak-room, and did afterwards without smoaking them at all; for as soon as the flitches had lain their due time in salt, he laid them upon a rack near the cieling, in the kitchen, within the reach of some heat from the fire: Where after they had gradually dried, he took them away, and laid others in their room; and thus he proceeded to cure all his bacon, giving it a most white colour, free of all smoak, and likewise free of all rust, that might be occasioned from too much heat of the fire. For this is a true maxim in the drying of bacon, that so far as the heat of the fire enters the flitch, so far the rust will breed in it. Not but that there are two extreams in drying bacon. Some hang up their flitches in the side of a chimney, to be dried and cured by the sooty smoak, for two or three weeks, so that when they are taken down, they appear black. This way, indeed, may help to keep the bacon from tainting a long time; but its unwholesome nature and unpleasant taste want no rehearsing. So likewise is the under-drying of bacon another extream, for then the fat will be like tallow, and taint in a little time.

  How another Country Bacon-monger cured his Bacon so as to make it look very white, eat sweet, and keep sound a long Time.--This bacon-monger, I am here writing of, is a tradesman besides, for you must know, that in many country towns and villages there are shopkeepers and others, who kill many hogs in a year, for selling bacon wholesale and retail, as grocers, chandlers, publicans, butchers, &c. most of whom make use of abundance of pickle for steeping their flitches in, to prepare them for salting and drying, and have likewise their smoak-houses built on purpose for the drying of their bacon, in the same manner as many London bacon-men have. But this country bacon-man makes use of no pickle nor smoak-house: His way is fairly to salt the flitches with a little powder'd salt-petre, mixed with common salt, and once a week, for three or four weeks, he rubs a little more salt on each flitch, and shifts them; then he hangs them in his chimney-corner, where no smoak comes at them, nor too much heat from the fire, when dried enough, he carries them up into a chamber, and lays the first flitch on wheat-straw, and when he has put some straw on that, he lays another flitch over it, then straw, then flitch, and so proceeds, till he has laid ten or fifteen flitches in one heap. And thus many more may be laid in one chamber, cover'd over with wheat-straw. A way that keeps bacon in the sweeter and soundest condition of all others; for here is no excess of heat, cold, or moisture to annoy it. Therefore it was that this man sold his bacon, when others could not theirs, who do not cure it so well as he does.--But there are some who think it a good way to preserve their flitches of bacon sweet and sound, by laying them in a heap of malt, and it may answer the end, if the malt is fully dried, and of the brown sort, free of any smoak-tang; otherwise it is apt to damp it, and give it an ill relish.--I also know a farmer's wife that never lets her bacon hang in the chimney above three days, and then puts it on a rack near the outside of the chimney to dry; for her notion is, that if it hangs above three days here, it wastes.

  The different Qualities of Pork and Bacon.--It was in March, 1745, that I had the honour to be in conversation with a worthy and curious Member of Parliament, whose seat lies about 100 miles eastward from London, who told me, he had sent to a friend of his in London a present of pickled pork, which for its good relish, and for retaining its fat in boiling, made him declare, he had a very ill opinion afterwards of the common pickled pork sold in London, because it had not so good a relish, nor would it retain its fat in boiling like this country gentleman's pork; which leads me to observe, that there are several sorts of pork and bacon, whose good and bad properties are chiefly owing to the food the swine eat: Some are fed (near the north seas especially) with fish; in other parts, with tallowchandlers graves; some with horse-flesh; some with whey and skim milk; others with wash and grains; some with the offald and blood of beasts; others with bran and pollard; some fatted on clover, turnips, potatoes, parsnips, and carrots; others with horsebeans; some on oatmeal, and some on beech-mast and acorns; some on barley, or French-wheat, or on pease, &c. Now to avoid prolixity, in writing of all these in particular, I shall only touch on a few of them. The feed of whey and skim milk, wash and grains, bran and pollard, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, turnips, clover, the offald of beasts, oatmeal, and barley-meal, &c. are all sweet food, but create a loose flesh in comparison of the more firm feed of corn; and of all corn food, there is none that comes up to the pease. And therefore many of the knowing ones (with a great deal of reason) will buy our pease-fed bacon, in refusal of all other bacon; as being sensible that this particular sort of corn-fed bacon has not only a very close flesh, but likewise a very sweet one. And of this sort is all the bacon I make; a quantity (little or more) of which I am ready to supply any person with, or with pickled pork, upon a proper order.

  How to prepare Flitches of Bacon for drying, so as so prevent their rusting, and for securing their Gammon Parts from the Breed of the Hopper-fly.--This is a matter of no little consequence to families, because where they consume little or much of this most necessary, ready, pleasant, wholesome, cheap food, they would willingly have it preserved from these two pernicious accidents, which (for want of knowing how to prevent it) happens to thousands of flitches of bacon, and renders them of little value. As to rustiness, I take it to be the first beginning of the bacon's decay, and consequently is the first worst part of it, which is so disagreeable to all stomachs, that if much is eaten of it, it surely causes sickness for a little while. Rustiness is occasioned two several ways; one is, by letting too much heat come at the bacon, as I have before observed; the other, by keeping it too long before using. Now to prevent the first, the old country practice is, that when the flitches have lain long enough in salt, and are ready to be hung up in or near the chimney to dry, they spread over the fleshy side of each flitch a good quantity of long bran, which they pat down with their hand, for making the salt lie the closer to the meat, and to keep it from falling off when it is got dry. Many are of opinion, that by such branning the flitches, it helps to keep them from rusting: But I say, that whether bran is put to them or not, bacon will rust, if the fire is made so hot near it as to melt a little of the outside fat; but, I think, I know a better way than to make use of bran, and that is, when the flitches have lain long enough in salt to be hung up for drying, we sift over their fleshy side some fine wood ashes (made from beech or ash) pretty thick, which having a penetrating salt in them, it enters a little way into the flesh, and sticks some time to it, helps to keep off rust, and discharges the breed of the hopper-fly, that in ill-cured bacon, especially, is very apt in time to breed, increase much, and eat the gammon part of it, for here they first begin, and are succeeded by maggots. This application of ashes is of late become a practice in Hertfordshire.

  An Account of a Lord's Butcher who salted and managed his Flitches of Bacon in so wrong a Manner, that great Part of them were spoiled.--This case I know to be true, because it was acted not far from Gaddesden, where a lord had so large a family, that he kept a butcher all the year on purpose for killing his oxen, sheep, calves, swine, &c. It was here they fed their swine extremely fat for bacon. And although this butcher was an elderly man, yet he committed a very gross mistake in the management of his salted flitches of bacon; for as the thick back-part of them lay higher than the thinner belly-part, the salt in melting run down to the thin part, and left the thicker part bare of it. Thus they lay some weeks without disturbance, for the butcher thought he had well secured them with a sufficient quantity of salt; but so it was, that when he came to displace them in order for drying, he found all their fat back-part stunk to that degree, as made them be boiled only for getting out their grease, to grease cart-wheels with. And to this use only was it put, notwithstanding the lord kept a pack of hounds, that would have greedily eaten all this damaged bacon; but then it would have done them a great prejudice. For if hounds were to be fed with salted meats, it would certainly lessen their scent. However, as the thin part of the flitches had the greater share of salt, they proved to be as good bacon as need to be used. And there were large quantities of it.

  The Nature of Salt-petre, Bay-salt, Petre-salt, and Sal Prunella.--Salt-petre is a bitterish salt, and of a sulpherous nature, for it is the main ingredient used in the making of gunpowder; yet it is of a coolish nature, very penetrating, and resists all putrefaction; therefore of excellent service in the preservation of hog-flesh, especially in hot weather, because the powder of salt-petre presently enters into pork or bacon, and greatly prevents their tainting.--Bay-salt likewise is good in a mixture with common salt, provided too much is not thus made use of, for if it is in excess, it will give the flesh a disagreeable taste. Some say, petre-salt is only bay-salt dusted; but this I am not certain of. However, I heard a gentleman's cook say, that petre-salt makes pickled pork or bacon red and soft, when salt-petre makes them red and hard. Either or both of these, when mixed with coarse sugar, preserves pork or bacon in an admirable manner, and gives them such a pleasant relish, as makes them eat much like Westphalia ham. But sal prunella exceeds all, if applied in a right quantity, being a more purified salt, and therefore is sold at a greater price.

  A Butcher's Notion of Salt-petre.--This butcher kills many hogs for bacon in a year, and says, he never dares to use above a quarter of a pound of salt-petre to the greatest hog; for he says, you may lay on as much salt-petre as will make bacon stink, or at least taste nauseously rank.

  Why a Vale Housewife refuses to make use of any Salt-petre in the curing of her Pork or Bacon.--This housewife is wife to a man that lives on his own estate at Eaton in Bedfordshire, who is seldom without half a dozen hogs in his yard, which he feeds for his own family's use; now it is a constant notion of this woman, that salt-petre does more harm than good to pork or bacon, she therefore refuses it, as believing it to be of so penetrating a nature, that it eats out the gravey and goodness of the meat, makes it unpleasantly dry, and gives it an unsavoury twang. For, as she says, if bacon is rightly salted and dry'd, there is no danger of its tainting; and as to the redness of the colour, and hardness of the flesh, which she allows salt-petre may be the cause of, she thinks common salt may fully supply both these qualities, if enough of it is made use of, and the bacon passes through a leisure drying, and is rightly preserved afterwards.

  To make a Pickle for pickling Flitches of Bacon, in order to prepare them for being Smoak-dry'd.--This is the practice of many of the great bacon-mongers both in town and country; and is indeed a very safe way to secure flitches of bacon from the blow-fly, and from taint; because such a liquid is sure to affect all their outsides at once, and as it is composed of very potent strong ingredients, their insides too in a little time. On this account it is, that several of these bacon traders venture to kill their hogs for baconers even in warm weather, by depending on the security of this penetrating liquor. But besides all this, bacon thus prepared weighs much heavier than that prepared by only salting the flitches three or four weeks, and gradually drying them as long by a country wood fire. As pickling therefore is most to their interest by increasing the weight, and saving much salt, time, and trouble; one sort of it may be made thus.--Mix half a peck of white common salt with half a peck of bay salt, two pounds of brown sugar, two ounces of sal prunella, and two pounds of salt-petre.--These boil in such a quantity of spring water as when cold will pickle two flitches at a time, to lie a fortnight in the same. Then take them out and smoak them over a saw-dust fire, or by that made with old wood.

  To cure Hams by an unboiled Pickle.--Take six pounds of coarse sugar, a peck of bay salt, a quarter of a pound of finely powder'd salt-petre, and half an ounce of allum; put them into spring water, so that the quantity of the brine may come up to the standard of bearing an egg; when the liquor is at this proof, lay in your hams to lie in it three or more weeks; then take them out of the pickle, dry them with a cloth, and rub them over with common salt; then it is that they are fit to be dried.

  To cure Hams by a boiled Pickle.--You may pickle two or three hams in the following pickle at a time; take two pounds of coarse sugar, two ounces of sal prunella, half a peck of common salt, four pounds of bay salt, one ounce of allum, and five ounces of salt-petre; they must be all in a powder'd condition. then infuse them in six gallons of spring water, in which boil all of them briskly for only fifteen minutes; scum it well, and when the liquor is perfectly cold, put in your hams to lie in it three weeks at least; at the end of which time take them out, rub them dry with cloths, and work in some dry salt all over them with your hand, and then they are fit to dry and keep for your leisure uses.

  To make English Hams like those of Westphalia in Shape and Taste.--The following receit has been collected from one author to another, and as it is somewhat curious and serviceable, I shall also transcribe it in the same words.--Take the legs of a porker, and lay them in cloths, to press and dry out the remaining blood and moisture as much as may be, laying planks on them, and on them great weights, which will bring them into form. Some have boxes purposely shaped for them, with screws or weights to press down their lids; when they are thus ordered, salt them well with bay-salt finely beaten, and lay them in troughs or wicker panniers one upon another, close pressed down, and covered with sweet herbs, as hyssop, winter-savory, thyme, pennyroyal, &c. which will infuse into them a pleasant flavour; let them continue thus a fortnight, then rub them well over with petre-salt, and let them lie three or four days till it soaks out, it being of a wonderful penetrating nature; then take them out, and hang them in a dry close smoak-loft, and make a moderate fire under them, if possible of juniper wood, but so that it may last long, and let them hang to sweat and dry well; then hang them up in a dry place that is somewhat airy three or four days, to purge them of the ill scent the smoak has put into them, and then hang them up for good in a dry place, that is somewhat airy, against you have occasion to use them; which when you have, wrap them up in sweet hay, put them into a kettle of water when it begins to boil, and keep them well cover'd till they are boiled enough, and they will cut of a curious red colour, and eat short and savoury, so that few can discover them from the right Westphalia hams.--There are several other ways of curing legs of pork to make hams of them, too tedious to insert here, and therefore I shall only touch on a little more of this subject.--Salt-petre hardens and colours flesh, and on this account it is a very proper ingredient to rub into a leg of pork, for making it into a ham; and as the bloody juice should be extracted before it is salted for good, some have rubbed fine powder'd salt-petre, with some coarse-sugar, all over the leg once a day for three days, before they salt it well with common salt, and when it is so done, it may lie a month or two in the same, turning it now and then with your pocket fork; then it may be hung up in paper to dry for use.--Others mix sal prunella with salt-petre, and rub a ham with them, to keep in a strong boiled pickle twelve days; then re-boil the pickle, and re-salt the ham as before, and after it has lain a fortnight in it, it is to be bran'd and dried; and as to the boiling of such a ham, it is best done as aforesaid with hay. But for boiling oak saw-dust with a ham, to give it the deeper red colour, it ought to be inquired into, how wholesome or unwholesome it is.--Others rub a leg of pork with coarse sugar two days together, and taking a mixture of sal prunella and common salt rub it well in it, and let it lie in the same till taken out to dry.--Others, as in Yorkshire, where land, workmens labour, and hogmeat, are extraordinary cheap, and their water carriage of goods to London as convenient, send great numbers of hams every year out of that large county to the opulent city of London, so that there are now few cheesemongers shops there, but what sell these hams for about five-pence a pound: But this art is not only practised in Yorkshire, for there are many gentlewomen that delight in this piece of good housewifery, as well as tradesmens and farmers wives who may make hams as before-mentioned, or thus--Take the leg or ham of a barrow hog, about a year, a year and a half, or two years old, when they are at their full growth, and salt it a little for extracting the bloody juice, which it will do in about ten or twelve hours time, as it lies in a glazed pot: This done, wipe it dry, and bruise half a pint of bay-salt, and mix it with one pound of coarse sugar, four ounces of powder'd salt-petre, and a quart of common salt: These being well incorporated, put them in a saucepan or an iron dripping-pan over a fire, where the composition must be well stirred till hot; and while it is so, you must rub it soundly over every part of your ham; then let it lie two or three weeks under this salt mixture, turning it several times, and it will be ready for being dried in a chimney or smoak-stove, by burning saw-dust or otherwise.--Or order your hams partly after the method they practise in the city of Wells, in Somersetshire--Let your ham be thoroughly cold, then beat it on both sides well with a rolling pin, for making the flesh tender, readier to take salt, and eat the shorter; when you have so done, powder three quarters of an ounce of salt-petre with a quarter of an ounce of sal prunella, which mix and rub all over the ham, lying thus four and twenty hours: Then beat one ounce of sal prunella more very fine, and mix it with a pint of bruised bay-salt, two quarts of common salt, and one pound of coarse sugar; which heat in an iron pan over a fire, till it is hot, but not so hot as to melt, and rub it over the ham at your turning it every day for three weeks: At the end of which time hang up the ham to dry, and when dried, wrap brown paper about it to keep off flies, and preserve it in a dry part of the kitchen.--Or take this shorter way--Hold your ham near a fire-side, and rub half a pound or more of coarse sugar over it; this done, let it lie so a day and a night; next, you are to rub it all over with four ounces of powder'd salt-petre, and four ounces of petre-salt, mixt with three pints of common salt: Thus salted, let the ham lie in an earthen pan or wooden bowl or tray, three weeks, turning it now and then, and rubbing a little common salt over it, at the end of which time wipe it well, and dry it in your chimney by a wood fire.

  The Power of Brine and the frugal Management of it, in the Cure and Preservation of Bacon, Hams, Tongues, &c.--In many of the London cellars, where they keep great numbers of flitches of bacon in heaps under salt for two or three months together, ready for drying and selling them at a beneficial time, they have a reservoir to catch and retain the brine that descends into it by a dissolution of the salt; which brine they boil and scum till it is perfectly clear, and make it serve (with more salt) for a pickle to preserve other bacon, pork, or beef in; and if they want to make it very strong, they add sugar and common salt, or salt-petre, &c. to their liking. Thus flitches of bacon, hams, spare-ribs, tongues, clods of beef, legs of pork, or other pieces of a hog or bullock, may be pickled, by lying in the pickle of either of the foregoing receits; hams four or five weeks, the clods of beef three weeks or a month, tongues twelve or fourteen days, and thinner meat accordingly: These brines, if made to the proof of swimming an egg, will last good three months, and if they are found to decay, or are bloody-foul, it is only boiling them up again with some addition of common salt, which when scummed, and discharged of all flesh, will be clear and new for another trial. And it is from such pickle, that hams, tongues, or other pieces of meat may be taken to dry in a chimney or stove, or a smoak closet or room, over or near the burning of charcoal, sawdust, or old spokes of wheels, or other dead wood that has lost its sap. An innkeeper of Leighton in Bedfordshire, that had somewhat a greater trade than his neighbours, and kept plow'd ground in his hands besides, always kept his beef and pork in one large powdering tub in brine; and for preserving his brine and meat sweet and untainted, his maid-servant all the summer long was obliged to boil up her pickle once every fortnight or three weeks, in order to scum and purify it, till it was as clear as rock-water; when cold, she return'd it into the tub, and having new salted her old, or salted her new fresh meat, it was laid in this clarify'd pickle. And thus he went on all the year, shifting his brine often in summer, and seldom in winter, but never intirely discharged his powdering tub of brine, except once a year, and then it was for using it to keep his wheat-seed in at sowing-time. But his tongues he kept in a pickling pot by themselves, and shifted the brine now and then that they laid in, by boiling and scumming it, and new salting them. But Mr. Houghton is more particular in his fourth volume (page 257.) of Brine ; for there he says, that in the strongest unboiled brine he could make, he potted two porkers in February, and in July he thought it exceeded all the bacon he ever eat with beans.--That in such brine, that he kept two years without boiling, he sunk a brisket of beef for eight days, in February, and then took it out, dried it in a temperate open place for six weeks, and it eat very well with boiled sallad.--That about the same time he sunk another piece of beef for twenty days, and afterwards hung it up in an open place for the whole summer, and at Michaelmas it was very good.--That he sunk a leg of mutton in brine all night, then hung it up in a string in defiance of the season and flies for ten days, and after dressing it, found it excellent; and so fresh as to eat salt with it.--The use of making such a strong unboiled brine that will answer this end, I will shew by an example of preserving a leg of pork in it, so that it may be made to eat like true Westphalia ham. It is certainly true, that the leg of the wild foreign black breed of hogs is the best to make a ham of, because their flesh is naturally shorter and sweeter than the English breed. After the leg has been cut out ham-fashion, let it be a day or two before it is meddled with, then beat only the fleshy side of it with a rolling-pin, rub the leg all over with one ounce of powder'd salt-petre, and let it lie thus eight and forty hours; next mix two handfuls of common salt, with one ounce of sal prunella finely beaten, one handful of bay-salt, and one pound of coarse sugar. These, as I said before, must be warmed in a pan till they are near melting, and then when they are so warm, must be soundly rubbed with more common salt all over the ham, in an earthen glazed pot; when the ingredients are all dissolved into a brine, turn the leg or ham twice a day with a pocket fork for three weeks together, then take and dry it as bacon is dried.--This is a very strong brine, and may serve as an excellent pickle for bacon, pork, beef, &c. &c.--The use of coarse sugar in salting or pickling of bacon, pork, beef, mutton, &c. may perhaps be wonder'd at, particularly if mixed in a pye with salt and pepper, &c. but it has been often found to add a tender shortness to the meat, and give it a delicate relish besides. Thus when sugar is used in the cure of bacon or pickled pork, it is said to be as effectual in the curing of them as salt. And it is well known, that salt causes all meat it is applied to for keeping, to be hard and dry; whereas sugar makes the flesh eat tender, short, and sweet. Thus as sugar has a great spirit in it, it is thought that it will, with half the quantity of common salt that is usually made use of, preserve flesh a year together sound and good.--But to be further particular in making a right pickle or brine for keeping bacon, or hams, or tongues, or other meat in--Boil in five gallons of water (whereof the spring sort is best) a quarter of a pound of salt-petre, one pound of petre-salt, four pounds of bay-salt, two ounces of sal prunella, and eight pounds of brown sugar; boil all fifteen minutes, scum it well, and when cold put in your meat, to keep five or six weeks, more or less.

  Rabisha's Method to bake a Gammon of Bacon.--He says, first boil the gammon tenderly, then take off its skin, &c. season it with pepper and a little minced sage, stick the upper side with lemon-peel, and then put it into a good butter'd crust, or in an earthen pan, or pewter dish, cover'd over with a pasty crust; but before you put on the cover, lay on it some pieces of butter, and when it is out of the oven, pour melted butter over it.--Or boil an onion or two in claret with minced sage, and a few sweet herbs, thicken'd with butter.--This is good, eaten hot or cold.

  To roast a Ham.--This is to be done by first boiling it tender, and then stripping off its skin; when on the spit, besmear it with the yolks of eggs, crums of bread, and shred lemon-peel, and make this serve for basting it several times as it roasts.--A gammon, either boiled, baked, or roasted, may be made an exquisite dainty dish with pigeons, or chickens, &c. or eaten with brocoli, cabbage, or collyflower.

  The ill Qualities of Bean-fed Bacon, and that from Swine fatted on Distillers Wash, Butchers Offald, &c.--Bean-fed pork and bacon is somewhat like horseflesh in comparison of pease-fed pork and bacon, because the beans make the hog's flesh of an ill colour, and coarse withall, give it a thick rind or skin that will crack and part in boiling, eat rank, and is accounted by the knowing ones to be a groat worse in a stone than a pease-fed hog.--So swine fatted on distillers wash, as thousands in a year are at London on that and butchers offald, &c. I say, that the pork and bacon of these are of a flabby nature, and will (notwithstanding the hardness that salt-petre gives it) lose much of their fat in boiling. In September and October 1748, great numbers of wash-fed hogs (I was informed) were driven from place to place in Hertfordshire, to sell ready fatted for pork or bacon, because, as it was said, London was glutted with their bacon. Therefore it concerns all gentlemen, tradesmen, and others, in cities and towns, particularly in the opulent city of London, who buy all the bacon and pork they use, to prefer sweet, wholesome, good pease-fed country pork and bacon, as fed in Hertfordshire and other Chiltern countries.

  To roast a Gammon of Bacon.--Fresh it by soaking it in warm water, then tear off the skin, and let it lie with only a quart or three pints of raisin wine, mountain wine, or sack, in a glazed or pewter dish, one day; then spit it, and roast it with paper before it, baste it most part of the time with the same sack, &c. and at last strew over it minced parsley mix'd with crums of bread.

  To boil a Gammon of Bacon.--Soak it in cold water for three days, scrape and rub it with a brush, boil it with sage, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and fennel, with some bay leaves; this done, tear off the skin, and stick it with cloves; to be eaten hot or cold.

T HE Case of a Gentleman, who had a Boar almost spoiled by the wrong Management of a Servant.--The boar I am writing of had been kept by a worthy nobleman indeed, who for his hospitality, and generous entertaining his neighbours, is in very great esteem in the country about him. The boar was almost three years old, when he was put up to fat for brawn against Christmas 1745, and although he was for this purpose feeding near twelve months, was yet in a lean condition at killing-time. The reason of which was, the gentleman's servant had no more wit than to put the boar up in a stye, that was contiguous to several others, where sows and barrow hogs were kept; so that there was only a bare partition of boards between one and the other. This made the boar fret to that degree, that his meat did but little more than keep him alive. However, when the time of year was come for killing him, the nobleman sent for our Gaddesden butcher, because he understood this art better than all others in the country about him. When he view'd the boar, he told the lord, he was not fit to kill for brawn, as being too lean for the purpose; but this did not satisfy him, for he insisted upon his being killed for brawn. On this the butcher, who lived seven miles from him, said, if he would but send the boar to his house, where he had good conveniencies, he would do his best to make brawn of him; accordingly a stout man was appointed to drive the boar, but when he was out of the stye, he ran about the nobleman's park which way he pleased, so that they were obliged to have him into the stye again, where they halter'd and bound him, and carried him in a cart to the butcher's house, who in two days time killed him.

  How the Boar before mentioned was dressed by the Butcher for making Brawn of him.--After the boar was stuck and dead, the butcher poured scalding water over its carcase, and then directly rubbed in a quantity of powder'd resin, and upon that more scalded water, to make the hair rough and matt, for the better being pulled off; in the same manner as he does the least pig. For a porker, the water must not be boiling hot, because if it was so, it would set the hair, rather than help to make it part easily from the flesh; but a boar-skin will admit of scalding water. Now to make the best of such a lean boar, the butcher cut off all the fat and all the lean from off the bones of a neck of pork, and stuft this meat in between the lean and shield of the brawn, for that the fat of a neck of pork is harder than any other part of the hog, and therefore fittest for this purpose. This done, he with sufficient help made rollers of the brawn, by twisting up the flesh as tight as they could with a cord, and when they had well girted it, they immediately bound the roller about with tape: Thus they did by every roller of brawn, and then hung the rollers by strings on cross sticks placed over a copper of water, and boiled them; and when the rollers, that before hung down lengthways, turned broadways in boiling, they were taken out and bound tighter, and thus boiled on for about nine hours in all, which is enough for the flesh of a young boar, because there ought to be three hours difference in the boiling of a young boar and an old one; for if a young boar's flesh was to be boiled twelve hours, as an old boar's should, the fat would be apt to boil out too much. Yet this happens more or less, as the feed of the hog is; for if he was fed with hard hog pease or beans, the flesh will not lose its fat, like that fed with flashy meat. However, as this boar was fed with such hard meat, and the fat and lean of a neck of pork was added to it, it made this young lean boar's flesh look marbled-fat. And thus it eat moist, sweet, and very tender.

  The Case of another Gentleman, who in buying and feeding a Boar for Brawn, lost most of it.--This gentleman lives in Hertfordshire, about twelve miles distant from the other, who, in the year 1746, bought a boar, about seven years old, that was extreamly poor, for making brawn of him; when it was brought home, his servant put him up to fat on good pease; but in about six weeks time the boar fell off his stomach, and would not eat. Upon this he was advised to alter his meat, and feed him with barley-meal, and then the beast recovered his stomach, and fed till he was killed, three weeks after, nine weeks in all. This gave the old boar a quick but flashy fat, insomuch that it boiled almost all away; for as such an aged boar requires at least twelve hours boiling, to get the shield tender and soft, near all his fat was boiled out, and lay at the top of the water, to the quantity of almost a pail-full, which was good for little else than to grease cart-wheels with. This occasioned the butcher, who killed the boar, and managed the brawn to the last, to new bind the collars of brawn several times in their boiling (for altho' he did with much help bind up the stubborn shield of such an old boar, yet he could not prevent the loss of the fat:) And to know when the collars wanted new binding, they were tied by a string to a stick, that lay cross a deep copper (for a shallow one is improper for this work, because they must not touch its bottom) and the collars of brawn, that before hung pendent longways, now turned broadways: Then it was that they were new bound with broad tape, and boiled again, and this was done several times, till, at last, a roll or collar, which at first was as big as a child's body, by such waste of fat became no bigger than a man's arm is thick, insomuch that there was hardly any fat left in it; nor would this brawn have been fit to be brought to a table, had not the butcher interlaced the lean of it with some fat bits of a porker.

  Observations on the Case of this Gentleman, who had bad Brawn instead of good Brawn; and how Brawn is to be managed to have it good.--This misfortune happened, as I said, thus, The gentleman bought a boar for making his Christmas brawn, that was very poor, and also very old, and by feeding him a very short time on barley-meal, his fat became so very loose and flabby, that it melted out in boiling; not but that he was obliged so to do, because as the boar was a very old one, and very poor withall, his stomach could not digest the hard, dry, grey hog-pease he at first was fed with, for he at last dung'd them whole, and then went off his stomach, and must have been worse than he was, had he not been fed with the soft meat of barley-meal. Now an old boar by some is preferred to a young one for making brawn of, and they assign you this reason for it, saying, that the shield (the best part of the brawn) of an old boar is thicker than that of a young one. Others with more reason prefer a boar of three or four years old, as the fittest to make good brawn of, because he will feed and fat the kindest on hard grey pease, which will give him a hard fat, a mellow lean, and a good shield; when such a boar is thus fed fat, if the butcher does not make a delicate brawn of him, it is his fault. And to do it, he first soaks the flesh of the boar ten or twelve days in cold water, every day shifting it, and duly observing at every shifting to scrape and thin the shield, for by this cleanly management the fresh water not only extracts and washes out some rankness of the boar's flesh, but also adds to it an agreeable whiteness. When this is done, the next thing is to bind and boil the collars of brawn; to bind them requires the help of two men at least, for they must be bound extreamly hard with white tape of a penny a yard, of which there must be employed many; as this gentleman's boar took up above an hundred. To boil them, there must be a copper of water provided, wherein must be put a peck of the finest whitest oatmeal, with some milk, bay-leaves, and rosemary, for increasing a whiteness in the brawn, and giving it a savoury pleasant tang: Here it should boil as gently as possible ten or twelve hours, till a straw can be run through the brawn; but I am informed, that some, instead of tying up the collars with tape only, put them besides into a trunk or mould of tin, made so, that as the brawn shrinks in boiling, a collar is taken out of the copper, and directly screwed tighter; by which means the fingers are prevented scalding, and much time and trouble saved, that otherwise must be expended in drawing the collar tighter with tape and hands.

  Rabisha's Method of collaring and sousing Brawn.--Your brawn being scalded and boned, of each side you may make three handsome collars; the neck-collar, the shield-collar, and the side or flank-collar. If your brawn be very fat, you may also make the gammon-collar behind, otherwise boil and souce it. This being water'd two days, shifted three or four times a day, and kept scraped, wash it out, squeeze out the blood, and dry it with cloths. When it is very dry, sprinkle on salt; so begin at the belly, and wind it up into collars; but in case you can stow more flesh in the flank, or in the collar, you may cut it out of other places where there is too much, or from the gammon. This being bound up, as you would bind a trunk, with all the strength that can be obtained, put it into your furnace or copper, and when it boils scum it; but you must be careful it is kept full of liquor, and continually scummed for the space of six hours; then try with a wheat-straw if it be very tender, and cool your boiler by taking away the fire, and filling it constantly with cold water, so shall your brawn be white; but if it stands or settles in its liquor, it will be black: Then take up your brawn, and set it up on end on a board. Your souce-drink ought to be beer brewed on purpose, but if it be of the house-beer, then boil a pan of water, throw therein a peck of wheaten bran and let it boil, strain it through a hair sieve, and throw in two handfuls of salt, so mix it with your beer aforesaid, and souce your brawn therein. You may take half a peck of white flower of oatmeal, mix it with some liquor, and run it through a hair sieve, and it will cause your souce to be white: Milk and whey are used in this case; but your milk will not keep so long: You may put both in the boiling thereof, it will cause it to boil white: Keep your souced brawn close covered, and when it begins to be sour, you may renew it at your pleasure, by adding fresh liquor.

  What Mr. Bradley says of feeding, making, and soucing of Brawn, in his Country Housewife, page 186.--It is to be observed, that what is used for brawn, is the flitches only, without the legs, and they must have the bones taken out, and then sprinkled with salt, and laid in a tray or some other thing to drain off the blood; when this is done, salt it a little, and roll it up as hard as possible, so that the length of the collar of brawn be as much as one side of the boar will bear, and to be (when it is rolled up) about nine or ten inches diameter. When you have rolled up your collar as close as you can, tie it with linen tape as tight as possible, and then prepare a cauldron with a large quantity of water to boil it. In this boil your brawn till it is tender enough for a straw to pass into it, and then let it cool, and when it is quite cold, put it in the following pickle: Put to every gallon of water a handful or two of salt, and as much wheat bran, boil them well together, then strain the liquor as clear as you can from the bran, and let it stand till it is quite cold, at which time put your brawn into it; but this pickle must be renewed every three weeks. Some put half small-beer and half water, but then the small-beer should be brewed with pale malt; but I think (says he) the first pickle is the best. Note, the same boar's head, being well cleaned, may be boiled and pickled like the brawn, and is much esteemed.--In another place, page 110, he says, A boar ought to be put up at Midsummer to be fed for brawn against Christmas, when it sells best, even for one shilling per pound; and it should be an old boar, because the older he is, the more horny will the brawn be. We must provide for this use a frank, as the farmers call it, which must be built very strong to keep the boar in, and somewhat longer than the boar, but in such a manner, that the boar must not have room to turn round. The back of this frank must have a sliding board to open and shut at pleasure, for the conveniency of taking away the dung, which should be done every day; when all this is very secure, and made as directed, put up your boar, and take care that he is so placed, as never to see or even hear any hogs; for if he does, he will pine away, and lose more good flesh in one day, than he gets in a fortnight, he must then be fed with as many pease as he will eat, and as much skim milk as is necessary for him. This method must be used with him, till he declines his meat or will eat very little of it, and then the pease must be left off, and he must be fed with paste made of barley-meal, made into balls as big as large hens eggs, and still the skim milk continued, till you find him decline that likewise, at which time he will be fit to kill for brawn. These directions to make brawn, by Mr. Bradley and Rabisha, are all pretty well to the purpose; but to make brawn by the following printed receit, in a Housewife's Book, is very insipid indeed; it begins thus--To make brawn--When it is cut up, says the author, and boned, let it lie two days and nights in water, shifting it each day into fresh water; when you come to roll it up, dip it in warm water, and salt it well; then roll it up, and boil the least roll six hours, and the biggest nine.--Another printed one, more insipid than the last, says thus, To keep brawn, Take some bran, put it in a kettle of water over the fire, and two or three handfuls of salt; boil this up, strain it thro' a sieve, and when it is cold, you must put your brawn in it.

  To bake Brawn by an old Receit--Which says, take two buttocks, and hang them up two or three days, then take them down and dip them in hot water, pluck off the skin, and dry them very well with a clean cloth. When you have so done, take lard (that is to say, the flair of a hog) cut it in pieces as big as your little finger, and season it very well with pepper, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and salt; put each of them into an earthen pot; then add a pint of claret wine, and a pound of mutton suet, and so close it with paste. Let the oven be well heated, and so bake them. You must give time for their baking, according to the bigness of the haunches and the thickness of the pots; they commonly allot seven hours for the baking of them. Let them stand three days, then take off the cover, and pour away all their liquor; then have clarify'd butter, and fill up both the pots to keep it for use. It will thus keep very well two or three months.--Or you may pickle a boar's head, by either scalding off the hair of it, or burning it off with wheat-straw. If by the latter way, rub off the stubbed ends of the bristles with a brick-bat and knife; then open the head by its under side, and take out all the offald bones, brains, and tongue; but not cut the skull-skin in two. Next lay it in salt two or three days, at the end of which make several holes in the flesh, and stuff them with salt; then tie up the head in a linen cloth, and put it into a kettle of water with sweet-herbs, bay-leaves, onion, rosemary, and spices, and (if you will) a bottle of claret; boil it eight or ten hours, till it is very tender.--This is to be eaten cold like brawn, by laying the whole head on a table, and cutting it out at pleasure. And by the same way any hog's head may be prepared and eaten.--Or you may prepare and keep a hog's or boar's head in this manner: Scald or burn off the hair or bristles of it, as before directed, very clean, then take out the brains, and boil the head so tender, that all the bones may easily be taken out, then take the flesh from the skin, and mince it while it is hot; season it with spice, and squeeze it very tight down in a glazed earthen pot for keeping; or you may keep it in a pickle made of the water it was boiled in, with salt, and a very little pepper. This is to be cut out in slices at pleasure, and eaten with vinegar or mustard is excellent.

  To roast the Flesh of a Boar.--Sir Kenelm Digby says, that at Frankfort in Germany they roast a wild boar; but first, they lay the flesh to soak six, eight, or ten days in good vinegar, wherein are salt and juniper-berries bruised (if you will, says he, you may add bruised garlick or what other haut-goust you please) the vinegar coming up half way to the flesh, and turn it twice a day; then if you will you may lard it; when roasted it will be very mellow and tender. They do the like with a leg or other parts of fresh pork.

  Rabisha's Way to bake Brawn to be eaten cold.--Take (says he) your raw lean brawn, that is not useful to collar, and as much fat bacon, mince them small together, and beat them in a mortar; beat a good handful of sage with them; season them with some pepper, salt, and beaten ginger; pour in a little vinegar, and break in a couple of eggs; you may make a cold butter paste in a sheet form, and lay this your prepared meat on it; put in butter, and a few bay-leaves on the top, and so close up your pasty for baking.

  Sir Kenelm Digby's Way to bake Collars of Brawn.--It must, says he, be a very hot oven, and therefore be eight hours heating with wood; if the brawn is young, eight hours in the oven will do; if old, ten or eleven. Put but two collars into an earthen pot, with twelve pepper-corns, four cloves, a great onion quarter'd, and two bay-leaves; fill the pot not quite full of water when you set in, but fill it full when in the oven. The cloths on the collars must not be pulled off, till they have been three or four days out of the oven. To keep the collars afterwards in a soucing drink--Boil salt in table-beer, when cold put to it two or three quarts of skin milk to colour it, and change the liquor once in three weeks. Such pickled brawn cut in thin slices, and eaten with a mixture of pepper, salt, vinegar, oil, and mustard, is by some esteemed good eating.

W HY the Inspection and Care of a Sow and Pigs belongs to the Country Housewife.--As there is one or more sows generally kept in a farm yard, I think it may be said the inspection and care of her belongs to our country housewife when she has pig'd; because the pigs, if they are not her perquisites, yet as she makes wash from her kitchen, skim milk from her dairy, and grains from her brewings, she has here an opportunity for, putting them to a profitable use, by feeding her sow with them, and fatting her pigs with the greater expedition; for on this account, no meat comes up to wet meat, as it produces the most milk. Therefore all wash made of pot liquor, skim milk, or whey, or from brewing, when mixt with barley-meal, or bran, or grains, is a proper food for a sow that suckles pigs.

  The Management of a Farmer who lived at Eaton in Bedfordshire, whereby he generally had sucking Pigs all the Year.--This farmer kept twenty cows and a bull, and also three breeding sows, which brought him so many pigs, that he seldom was without some all the year, for as he had much milk and grain besides, he was furnished with the very best of food, for maintaining his sows in the greatest heart, and in the most milk. Accordingly he gave them full quantities of skim milk and no whey, because he thought whey was not good enough for milch sows, and would let them go abroad, during the summer season, to graze in his meadows next his house; and when they came home, he would give them two or three dishes of horse-beans every day (for in this Vale of Aylesbury there are but very few pease sown) to keep them in heart for sustaining the suckling perhaps of ten, twelve, or more pigs each sow. Nor can any make whiter, sweeter, or fatter pigs than dairymen-farmers; because they certainly have the greatest conveniences for doing it, as I shall shew in my next account of it.

  How a Woman made near four Pounds a Year, by the Pigs of only one Sow.--A Farmer's wife, that kept five cows, had the sole management of the sow and pigs, and took such care, that when she went out, and but daubed her legs, she obliged her maid to wash and clean them, lest her tail might dirty the milk and give the pigs a distaste of it; she also saw that the maid duly litter'd the sow and pigs with clean wheat-straw twice a day; and for increasing and preserving her milk, she always kept a sack of pollard by her, in readiness for mixing a handful or two in some skim milk every time she fed the sow, for she preferred the pollard to barley-meal and all other soft meats: (As to barley-meal, it is a notion many are possessed of, that it is too hot a food for a milch sow, and thereby tends to the drying up of her milk, yet allow, that kernel is necessary to be given to a sow besides milk and pollard) For as a sow with many pigs will grow lean and faint, if not sustained with good meat, she, as most people living in vales do, thinks that horse-beans are the most strengthening food of all grain; and therefore two or three dishes of them are given every day to a suckling sow, which hold about a pint each. Thus this farmer's wife went on feeding her sow in the best manner, causing the pigs to have white flesh, white skin, and white hair; so that at three weeks old, or thereabouts, she commonly sold them for three shillings, or three shillings and six-pence, each pig, to the London higler, at Dunstable market, or at Hempstead market; but if they did not answer their character, the pigs were either returned to her, or else she must take a very low price; for these higlers are such connoisseurs, that when they (according to their custom) hold up a pig by its hind leg, and perceive any thing of a reddish colour between them, they are displeased, and the owner must come off with the less money: So when a sucking pig is kept a month or more before it is sold, it then by age acquires a reddish skin, that lessens its value, for the higler well knows, that aged pigs will eat rank and displease his customers; but when a sucking pig is three weeks and a half old, it is then of a right age: And if a sow-pig is thus aged, and white fatted in the sweetest manner, it is (if rightly dressed) a dish for a king. Now there is no loss in keeping a suckling sow up in the greatest heart, for if she don't pay keeping fat, she won't pay keeping lean; and if she is thoroughly well kept, she will certainly take boar, on the turning of her milk, (which will be presently after the pigs are sold off) and breed again. By this method, this woman had generally five litters of pigs in two years from one sow, that she sold fatted for near seven pounds; for if a sow is kept on a full allowance of meat, there need little time be lost in her breeding, because the general part of these creatures are so prone to take boar on full keeping, that some sows will take him before the pigs are sold off. But when it so happens, it is an observation made by hog-dealers, that the sucking pigs of such a sow are the worse for it, by reason it damages her milk.

  The Method that a prudent Person took to manage a Sow before and after Pigging, and to cause his Pigs to have white sweet Flesh.--This person, more careful than hundreds of some others, always observed to let his suckling sow feed every time from her pigs, lest the pigs were made the worse, by letting the sow feed in the same stye where they lay. To this end, whenever he fed his suckling sow, he always let her out of the stye from her pigs into another adjoining stye, for if she was fed out of a trough that stood in the same stye, the pigs would be apt to lick the wash or other soft meat that is slobber'd about it, lose part of their appetite, and acquire a coarse reddish flesh. This method is duly practised by a near neighbour of mine, who I am persuaded makes as much money of his pigs as any man in our country, and is what every good husband and housewife ought to practise, where conveniency allows it; for which purpose, I have two styes ready to feed and keep my sows from their pigs at pleasure, and find no little benefit by it. Hence I am to observe, that it is not only to write of fatting a hog, and making his flesh into pickled pork or bacon, but you may see here, that there are several important matters besides, that are absolutely necessary to be wrote of in a book intituled The Country Housewife, relating to these serviceable animals, although never taken notice of by any author before, which occasions me therefore to be the more particular on this subject. But I must further observe to my reader, that it is mine as well as the person's practice I write of, never to let a stye be litter'd with much straw, when a sow is going to pig because if it is, the pigs are apt to be smother'd; and when she has pig'd (if she pigs in the day-time) carefully to attend the taking away her glean, though some are careless of it. And when she has pig'd her litter, and is gone out of the stye the first time, we scatter a handful of wheat-straw over the pigs, and when she returns to them, we take the straw off, that she may the better see and suckle them. Then we take the opportunity of scattering a little more straw on the sow; and so on, increasing the straw by degrees, and giving the pigs and sow a small matter of it at a time twice a day: Thus we think such management tends much to nourish the pigs, keep them clean and white, and force on them a quick growth.

  The Case of a Gentleman, who lost several of his sucking Pigs, by Means of his Sow eating sourish Apples.--This worthy gentleman, whose delightful seat I was at in 1746, lying in the county of Kent, for delivering to him some of my fine profitable Ladyfinger natural grass-seed, Tyne grass-seed, and Honeysuckle grass-seed, for sowing them, to convert his plow'd ground at once into a natural sward, for making a little park or paddock of it, to keep a few deer in, &c. was pleased to tell me he had a sow that, while she suckled her pigs, eat some stampings of apples that were a little sourish, which had such an influence on her milk, as to alter it so much for the worse, that it killed several of her pigs.--Which leads me to observe to my reader, by way of advertisement, that I sell these most excellent grass seeds, that may give an opportunity to convert plow'd ground into grass ground at once, without loss of time; by sowing these seeds amongst barley or oats, under such a peculiar management, by my information, as will assuredly keep the seeds and the infant crop of grass from the damage of insects and weather, and produce a plentiful crop of such grass, presently after the grain is carried off, and continue such for ever, if husbanded accordingly. Thus a person may come by the very best of grass ground, free of those nasty prejudicial seeds of weeds, that accompany hay-seeds taken promiscuously out of hay-lofts; and thereby the cows which feed on this grass will yield milk, butter, and cheese, that excells, I believe I may say, most or all other sorts, fats a beast presently, and gives them the sweetest of flesh. And thus this gentleman inclosed about forty acres of land with pailing (park-like) chiefly because it prevents the approach of huntsmen too near his seat by day, and poachers by night; a new sort of management, and which, very probably, may give a gentleman more pleasure, than if he occupied a thousand acres of field land.

  Sow bursted.--A farmer living near Ivinghoe, in the Vale of Aylesbury, having a sow kept up that fed on beans for fatting, gave her such a large quantity of whey at once, as swelled the beans in her maw to that degree as bursted her; for if a fatting hog is neglected giving water to, and comes to drink greedily on sweet whey, it alone will endanger its life, but much more when it is drank in great drought on a belly-full of dry horse-beans. Therefore where great dairies are carried on, persons ought to be more than ordinary careful on this account, lest they meet with the same loss this farmer did, whom I was well acquainted with; but I suppose it to be the fault of his servant, for he himself was a man of good judgment in the farming business.

  Sow killed by Accident.--In the harvest-time of 1747, a woman living at Edlesborough in Bucks kept two sows, one was to pig the same day she died, which was occasioned by the sow's getting her head through a hedge or pale, where, by straining to draw her body after her, it so squeezed her belly, as to kill her and her pigs: The other was killed in the following manner.

  A Sow killed by a wrong Medicine.--The same woman having lost one sow, the other pig'd well; but they had given her something that had alter'd her milk so, that the pigs all scour'd: This made her get advice, how to cure her pigs; and to do it, she boiled twelve dozen of corks in milk, and gave it to the sow, which bound both the sow and pigs to that degree, as killed them all. Thus the poor woman lost her two sows, and their litters of pigs, almost at a time.

  An Account of a Hog-doctor's Procedure to cure Swine that ailed nothing.--A thresher being at work in a barn, as he came out of it, he happened to put his foot on hog's-dung; the stink of which so offended our nice workman, that in a passion he struck a hog on the head with his flail, and made it reel. Now as a hog is one of the most sulky creatures upon earth, if a little out of order, it went to a straw-rick just by, and there lay, till next day; when the farmer finding it, he sent for a hog-doctor from Redbourne in Hertfordshire, who, on viewing the hog, said it had the murrain, and would infect the six others it went with (for the man that struck it, would not own it) upon this he was employ'd, and had half a crown a drink for all of them.

  A Sow poison'd by drinking Broth.--A woman having a sow, she committed a mistake in boiling a poisonous herb for a healthy one, for giving the broth to her sow, it poisoned and killed her: The case was this, she wanted some herbs to boil with her meat, and as it is usual with country-women to gather them in the fields in the spring time of the year, this woman gather'd what they call Jack in the Hedge, which she took for the white-ash herb, a herb which grows amongst grass; but it proved to be the first, that stinks like onions, and yet by some is accounted a wholesome herb. But whether she made the broth too strong of it, or it happened by some other unknown means, the loss of the sow was imputed to this herb.

  A Hog soon choaks.--Therefore what is given it by a horn must be done with a jirk, for if its head is held up too long in giving it a drink, it will be apt to choak.

  A Sow killed by eating Brandy Cherries.--A sow has died by eating too many cherries that were steep'd in brandy.

  Several Hogs cured, that were jogg'd under their Throats by eating Acorns.--A farmer, in our parish of Little Gaddesden, having several of his hogs, in a plentiful year of acorns, jogg'd under their throat by eating them, made no more to do, than to heat an iron red-hot, about the thickness of one's little finger, and run it through the corrupted knob or bunch, which brought on a suppuration, that run out a putrified matter, and cured the hogs. This way he took without bleeding them by cutting off a piece of each hog's tail, for then the hog is apt to bleed to death, especially in hot weather.--This year (1747) the acorns dropt the greenest that was known in the memory of man.

  Hogs died with rotten Livers.--A petty farmer had eight small hogs or rather pigs that were kept so poor and stunted, that if they fell in a cart-rut they could hardly get up, and thus were forced to eat the little grass they could find on a common, and in eating it were forced to eat much dirt, which rotted their livers, and killed them.

  Some Hogs killed by eating Acorns, and others cured.-- In the great acorn year of 1747, several hogs died after they had done masting, because they had acorns given then uncured.--A woman near me had one that seemed mad by its running about and screaming, insomuch that it was thought bewitched; at last, they gave it flower of brimstone in milk out of a horn, but not curing it, the next day they gave it some soot mixt in piss out of a horn, which effectually unbound it, and made it dung a prodigious quantity, so that it recovered and became a valuable hog.

  How to prevent Hogs being bound too much by eating Acorns. --Our way is to give our hogs a feed of boiled turnips mixt with bran, every morning fasting, before they go into the fields and woods to feed on acorns.

  To keep Hogs in Health that feed on Beans or Pease for fatting.--These are apt to bind hogs much; if they are bound too much, it takes away their appetite, therefore I commonly put some pollard or bran into the water I give them to drink, for taking off its rawness.

  Sucking Pigs killed by giving the Sow Hops amongst Grains.--This was true matter of fact, as it happened to a neighbour of mine, who ignorant of the ill effects of hops, gave the grains and hops together to his suckling sow, as they came out of a copper, from being boiled to make a small beer which we call Kettle-gallop; that is to say, we put the ground malt and hops into water and boil them together, then strain out the liquor, and work it with yeast for small beer; the grains of which, with the hops, were given to the sow, and caused the death of five pigs out of ten, and two of the rest pined to that degree that they were near dying. Now I cannot account for this damage otherwise, than that I think the hops being of a toughish nature, the sow could not digest them without much difficulty, or that their acid quality turned and curdled her milk so as to spoil the pigs. But to avoid this evil, I have in my treatise on brewing malt liquors, (intituled The London and Country Brewer, sold by Mr. Astley, bookseller, at the Rose in Pater-noster-row, London) shewed a way how to make kettle-gallop small beer, and yet to feed a sow safely on the grains, free of the damage of all hops.

  A Sow, just ready to pig, was poisoned by drinking yeasty Wash.--This was my own case. On the 26th of August 1746, I had a sow just ready to pig, when my silly maid-servant gave her a pail-full of wash, made up with the yeasty grounds of barrels, in the evening; and next morning she was found dead, prodigiously swelled, with much froth, that she had discharged at her mouth.--Now why the yeasty grounds of barrels poisoned the sow, in my humble opinion was, because yeast is of an acid nature; and as the grounds lay some time in the barrel after the beer was drawn out of it, it acquired such an increase of its acidity, as to gripe, poison, and swell the sow; for whether yeast is stale or new, it has a poisonous swelling quality in it, witness the experiment I published (in my said brewing treatise) of a dog purposely kept hungry for eating a yeasted toast, which in a very little time swelled and killed him. And why it has not the same effect on the human body by bread is, because there is but little used in making it, and that being mixed with much water and flower, the fire of the oven renders it entirely harmless: Therefore let this be a warning to all that read it, never to suffer any yeasty grounds of barrels to be mixed with any meat that is given to hogs, lest it kill them as it did my sow.

  Hogs damaged by eating Hens Dung.--This happened in my neighbourhood thus: A farmer bought two pigs for fourteen shillings of a hog-dealer, to keep and fatten; but was forced to sell them again for the same money, after keeping them long enough to be worth near as much more, and this because they took to eating the dung of a parcel of hens, as it fell from under them, while they roosted upon an elm-tree that stood near the farm-yard.

  How a Sow brought a Litter of four and twenty Pigs, and how she was managed to bring them up, till they were sold for five Shillings a Piece.--My next neighbour, who keeps a breed of hogs between the Berkshire and Leicestershire sort, had a sow of an ordinary size, that on the third day of August, 1747, brought him four and twenty pigs all alive at one litter, but all of them died except three, in a very little time; yet I know a brewer that lives at Albury near Gaddesden, who had the like number of pigs at a litter from one sow, and preserved them all alive, till he fatted and sold them for five shillings a piece; but to do this, he was obliged to keep the pigs in two styes, and the sows as well as possible. N. B. I knew a sow of the black foreign breed kill seven pigs ought of nine, because the farmer was so silly to confine her contrary to her nature in a stye.

  How cheaply a Woman kept a breeding Sow.--A woman that has an orchard containing about one acre of ground in my neighbourhood says, she gave no more than a single half peck of pollard in a day, at twice, mixt in wash, to her large sow, which with what grass she eat besides in her orchard, during the summer season, maintained her well till she pig'd.--Others give only a little wash at night, after the sow's grazing all day in clover.

  A Sow that eat Chickens.--There are sows that will eat chickens, and none are more prone to this mischief, than those of the wild foreign breed, or those between that breed and the English breed. A neighbouring farmer had one that would run after them, and thus devoured his chickens and young ducks: The same has been my own case; the best cure for which I think is, to fat and kill such a sow, and buy in a more gentle sort, and that I think is either the Berkshire or Leicestershire breed, for most of these are truly gentle.

  To dry away a Sow's Milk.--In summer time, when sows that suckle pigs are fed in clover, or other green vegetables, or when they are kept altogether on wet meat, this is very necessary to be done, to prevent that destructive disease, the garget in her bag or udder, which if neglected may prove fatal to her; tho' if a sow, when her pigs are sold off, is fed with horse-beans, or other dry meat, we then seldom do any thing to her; but when it is necessary, you need only to rub in some brandy over her bag, and it will dry away her milk at once using. But as farmers have seldom brandy by them, the tarring of a sow's bag will do as well.

  To wean Pigs.--At a month old, pigs may be weaned, but if older, it will be rather better; and to wean them to make the best hogs, it should be done in the month of May, for then the summer hot weather is before them, when good wash and grains is then almost as good as whey in winter; and to wean them in the cheapest manner we commonly let them go abroad with the sow in clover or other grass, and at their return home, in the evening, we feed the pigs apart from the sow, by giving them skim milk, whey, or good wash, with some barley-meal, pollard, or bran amongst it, and some dry beans or pease upon the ground or barley, oats, or thetches. Others, who have no corn, give them only pollard or barley-meal, mixt with wash or water; but a little kernel best keeps them from being stunted; for if a pig is once stunted in its growth, it requires some time and extraordinary cost to recover it. Thus if pigs are well fed with wash and grains, &c. and corn, besides their sucking the sow, the sow's milk will soon decline, and in time she will beat them off, and wean them from her. This way of weaning pigs by degrees, by letting them go with the sow in the day-time, and feeding them besides by themselves, is, in my humble opinion, the best way of all others to make good hogs.

  When a Sow should be killed for Pork or Bacon, in Pig or not in Pig.--It is a common opinion that a sow may be safely killed for pickled pork or for bacon, when she has gone eight weeks with pig, or half her time, for a sow goes sixteen in all, and pigs in the seventeenth. Others are of opinion, that she may be safely and profitably killed at nine weeks end, because the pigs do not begin to hair till that age; but when they are so old as to hair, they feed on the sow's flair, which lessens her flesh, and alters it for the worse.--I killed a yelt or young sow on the 17th day of November, 1747, that weighed near thirty stone, with nine pigs in her belly, when she was gone nine weeks and three days, and she proved good pickled pork, for the pigs had hardly begun to hair. I might have made bacon of her; but it sometimes happens, that when a sow has taken boar, and we put her up to fatten, that she stands not to her boaring; in this case, we either drive her to boar again, or else venture to fatten her without her taking boar at all. Now, when it so happens, we observe as well as we can to kill her in the mid-time between her boaring, which is about ten or eleven days after she has shewn signs of it; for we reckon a sow goes to boar at every three weeks end till she stands to it, that is to say, till she proves with pig. Now to know which is the best use to put such a fatted sow to, I shall here give my opinion, and that is, for making bacon of her; because common salt mixt with salt-petre, sugar, &c. with good drying, makes the flesh of a sow eat shorter and better, than when it is pickled. For in the making of bacon, the belly, thick-skin'd, fat, tough part, is quite sever'd from the flitch, and mostly put to the use of making an offald lard for kitchen frying uses, &c. whereas, if the sow is made pickled pork of, this coarse, fat belly-piece is pickled with the rest of the meat. And although she may be an old one when killed; yet being fatted with a sweet pea, or barley-meal, or pollard, her flesh will eat sweet, and if rightly bacon'd will eat short and pleasant.