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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 o