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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 theirflourishing 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, especiallyfor the diet of harvest-men now and then, because a porker, newly killed, admitsof 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 itmeets 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 appledumplins, &c. is there deemed an agreeable repast, from the peer to thepeasant. And as thus, it stands the most ready and cheapest of flesh victuals totradesmen and farmers in particular; for here the common plowman thinks himself notrightly provided, if he cannot carry a piece of pickled pork and apple-dumplin intothe field, to bite on till he comes home to dinner; as ours in Hertfordshiretake a piece of bread and cheese with them; for pickled pork is more profitable toa family than bacon, because there is no reason to commit waste in eating it, astoo often is seen in the case of the latter, when its burnt thick rind or skin, andthe rusty inside of the fleshy part, tempt many to throw them away. Bacon is likewisevery apt to have its gammon-part damaged by the breed of very minute insects of thevermicular 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 calledthe 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 abovethe art of most people, as I shall in my second part of the Country Housewifefurther 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 havein it, if kept aged.

  Of killing a Barrow-Hog for a pickled Porker inHarvest Time.--This is a late practice in Hertfordshire, but takes moreand more every year, because the fresh meat of a porker lessens the farmer's expencein beef, &c. For this sort of meat being of his own feeding, not onlystands 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 ofa porker in harvest has not been long practised is, because most people imagine thatthe weather at this season of the year is too hot for making the flesh take saltkindly, 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 nightsbefore we kill him, because if a porker was killed with a bellyful of meat, the fleshof it would not keep so long sweet and sound, as one killed when its belly is emptyof food. This is so well observed by butchers, that they not only follow this rulein killing a porker, but do it also in killing all other beasts, whenever their conveniencyallows it. So when a porker is killed in the summer time, it should be done in theevening, that the flesh may be the sooner cold, by the approaching night; and whenthe hair is scalded off, and the guts taken out, my way is to hang the carcase upin the cellar, or other cool place, where the great blue blow-fly cannot come. ThisI did by one I scalded in August 1746, about the third day after I had beganharvest, 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 husbandrybelonging to a farmer's house for lessening the total of a butcher's bill.

  Of cutting out the Carcase of a Porker for pickling.--Thenext morning we cut out the carcase into many pieces. First the butcher cuts offthe 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 offthe 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 bignessof the family.

  Observations on killing several Sorts of Sow-Hogsfor pickled Pork.--A young sow, that has had but one litter of pigs, and is gonenear half her time with pig again; if such a one is fatted and killed then, her fleshwill eat almost, if not quite, as well as the flesh of a spay'd sow, if pickled forpork. 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 11thof March and on the 4th of April I sold off her pigs. On the 30th ofApril she took boar, and thirteen days after I killed her, being near themiddle of three weeks after her brimming time was over; and she eat exceeding sweetand fine, as being fatted with barley-meal after a particular method; for thoughshe was fattening but a little while, yet by being kept well before, she was thoughtto weigh thirty-five stone, tho' fattened for pickled pork. It is also become a latepractice to kill an old sow for pickled pork, notwithstanding she be seven yearsold, or more, but then as her skin by such an age is got thick and tough, she isbetter pickled with her skin first taken off. This has been done to my knowledgefor harvest and other uses, to a good purpose; for as such an old sow is fatted ona sudden from a very lean condition, with barley-meal or other sweet food, the flesheats tender and luscious, like that of a young barrow-hog. And as to her skin orhide, a profit may be made of it, by selling it to the tanner, for that with tannedhog-skins many saddles are covered, and sold for a better price.

  How a Farmer in Hertfordshire singed theHair off his Hogs, to make pickled Pork of them.--This farmer rented about ahundred year in Great-Gaddesden parish, and was of opinion, that singing orburning 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 theskin with a brickbat dipt in hot water, till he got it white and clean. But I cannotsay I am of his opinion.

  Of pickling Pork in Harvest and at other Times ofthe Year.--When the carcase of a porker is cut out, and the bony pieces separatedfrom the fleshy ones, we lay the fleshy pieces on a clean brick cellar-floor, inharvest-time, or any other summer weather; but if a porker is killed in winter, welay 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 letit remain in this condition a day, or a day and night, to drain out its bloody graveyor juice; for if this is not first carefully done, the pork will stink, notwithstandingit is well fatted. Then to a porker that weighs five and twenty stone (which is thebigness 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 wellincorporated, our housewife salts every piece of pork with it all over; and as shesalts them, she lays or packs them very close in a glazed earthen pot or powderingtub (but we account the first best) and between every layer of pork sprinkles somecoarse sugar, till a pound of it is thus made use of. When all is potted, she laysover it a wooden cover.

  The Practice of an old Hertfordshire Housewifein the pickling of Pork.--This old Hertfordshire housewife, who livedmany years at Market-street, and boarded persons who were under the care ofthe late ---- Copping, Esq; for the cure of cancers, &c. oftensaid, that sugar helps to preserve pickled pork, and therefore should be always usedwith salt, to make the pork eat sweet, short, and well colour'd; but first of allher practice was to rub over every piece of pork as thin as possible with powder'dsalt-petre, and then to rub the mixture of salt and sugar over them; for that thesalt-petre hardens the flesh, and the sugar softens it, and greatly lessens the ferysharp taste of it. One pound and a half of sugar, she says, is enough to mix witha peck of common salt, and four ounces of salt-petre is enough for a porker thatweighs five and thirty stone: She also says, that a board or cloth, or both, shouldbe laid, and kept always over the pot or pickling tub, to keep out the air, for thatif the air gets much to it, it will never recover its first fine taste, do what youcan: She likewise strictly observes to take out every piece of pickled pork witha fork as she wants it, for that if the fingers touch it, they are apt to taint andspoil 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 rubsover 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 useof a quarter of a pound of salt-petre mixt in powder with common salt to the quantityof a peck, and after the pieces of pork were sprinkled with salt, to extract thebloody 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 ofthe salt did not appear to her liking, she drained off what was liquid, and boiledand scum'd it, and in the boiling added more salt and water, which when cold, shepoured on her pickled pork. But there are some that in such a case will take outevery piece of the pork, and salt it over again with common salt, and then pour overit this refined brine, as thinking all such preparation but little enough to preservepork 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 weatherthat chiefly endangers pickled pork to eat rank, wherefore if the fresh pieces ofpork, as I said, are laid on a cellar-brick-floor, or in some other cool place, todraw out the heat that remains in the flesh, it will be in no danger of eating rankor being otherwise damaged: A trouble that ought not to be grudged, since one night'stime is sufficient for this, if the cellar is of a very cool sort.

  How a young Maid-Servant spoiled the Flesh of aPorker 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 onthe dunghill, occasioned merely by the ignorance of a young maid-servant, who havingno mistress to look over her, pretended herself capable of pickling a porker. Butit happened otherwise, for after the pork had been a little time in the picklingpot, 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 thatnone of the farmer's servants would eat it. Now this damage was occasioned by hernot 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 lainthus 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 piecesof pork into it; here they are to remain a whole week, for the bloody gravey to beextracted; then take out all the brine, and boil and scum it again, with an additionof salt and water, if you find it necessary; when cold, put in the pork to standa 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 thismethod 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 beingof a reddish colour, boil an ounce, two, or three, of salt-petre in the brine, andit will not only bring it under this colour, but secure your meat the better fromtainting.--A second receit is, When the pork is cut from the bones, rub everypiece well with salt-petre; this done, take one part bay-salt, and two parts commonsalt, and with this rub every piece thoroughly well; then strew common salt overall the bottom of the pickling pot or tub, and lay in and cover every piece of porkwith salt; pack them as close as you can, and fill the hollow places with salt; likewisewhen you perceive that the top salt melts down, strew over more salt, and you neednot fear the pork keeping sound a good while.--A third receit. Some make useof 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 itred and hard: However, they allow, that all these three mixed with sugar, shortensthe flesh, gives it a pleasant relish, and makes it eat somewhat like ham, and keepsit from sliming. And for the better preventing any corruption breeding among thepork, some will, after it has lain a month salted down, take out every piece, andlay them in a fresh pot; and as they are laid in, will sprinkle a little salt overevery one of them; and after the old pickle is boiled, and scum'd, when cold, willpour it over the pork; for though pork is potted with only salt, yet it will allturn to brine in less than a fortnight: Now all this cost, care, and pains in picklingpork, 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 bestpickled Pork.--In pickling her pork, by mistake she put too much salt-petre amongstit, 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 sobad; therefore this housewife said, that two ounces of salt-petre was full enoughto mix with common salt, for salting a porker of twenty stone weight; and althoughthis woman tried, by washing some pieces of the pickled pork with hot water, to takeoff the ill taste, yet it proved past her skill, for that the flesh retained itsdisagreeable twang to the last.

  Why Pork, that is to be pickled, should be firstsprinkled with Salt, to soak and draw out its bloody Part.--The reason is, becausethere are veins in the flesh, that contain some blood in them, which, if not firstextracted and discharged by the salt, will corrupt and taint the pure flesh. On thisvery account, some are so careful, that they will not pickle down their pork tillit has lain under a sprinkling of salt a night and a day; others refuse to let itlie more than six or eight hours, as believing, that if it lies longer, the graveypart will be also drawn out: However, this is certain, that if the bloody water isnot 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.--Thisis in case you have not the conveniency of a close cold cellar; then kill your porkerin the evening, and as soon as his guts and appurtenances are taken out, sift someblack 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 strongpickle for five or six hours; for in this time the brine will extract and draw thebloody juices and jelly out of the flesh; this being done, cut the whole into convenientpieces, and salt and pickle it as before. By this means the flesh is delivered fromthe damage of its great enemy the blow-fly, that are very apt to get to it throughthe small holes and crannies; but if they do, they cannot meddle with the insideof the porker, because the pepper dust defends it. And as the pork is pickled, thepepper taste will be entirely overcome and lost by the greater power of the salt.--Orkill a porker in the summer evening, and hang him in a cellar with a wet cloth roundit, if there be danger of the fly, for cutting it out next evening.

  A particular Way of salting down a Porker for pickledPork.--I will here suppose the porker to be scalded, (which is what I alwaysdo) for then the flesh will take salt better than when it is singed, because thefire locks up the pores of the skin, when scalding opens them; after the porker hasbeen killed about ffteen hours in cool weather, cut it out, and sprinkle some commonsalt over the pieces, as before directed: This done, if the porker weighs thirtystone, 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 ingredientswell mixed into an iron-pan, and heat them very hot, and with it salt every pieceof 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 athick 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 nastyflm 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 housewivesdo, or else the porker will be in danger of corrupting.

  A Country Woman's Way to manage a Porker that istoo small, for pickling a long Time.--Of a por[k]er about eight or ten stoneweight, that is to be eaten quickly, she has the spare-ribs cut likewise, then saltsthe pieces but very little, even only to a sprinkling, for drawing out the bloodyjuices; twelve hours, she says, will do this in calm weather, four and twenty infrosty; 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, withsage mix'd with salt, and baked as it lies over an earthen pan in the oven.--Anotherhaslet may be made with the short bony pieces spitted, roasted, and eaten with apple-sauceand mustard.

  The Kentish and Suffolk Ways of picklingPork.--The pickling of pork, I believe I may say it for truth, was first practisedto 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 Suffolkfarmer has fell into such an approbation of it, that he refuses to make bacon, forgiving the preference to pickled pork: Here their general way is to kill porkersat two several times of the year; the first sort are those smaller porkers that haverun in the stubble, and got some flesh on their backs, which comes in for a firstand present supply of meat, after their old pickled pork is expended; and as smallporkers are to become a family subsistence for about three months, they salt thepieces accordingly, without salting them so much as to create a deep brine; and asthe weather at this time of the year comes in colder and colder, such salting willprove sufficient to keep the flesh sweet till Christmas following, when theybegin to kill their large hogs, to pickle for the ensuing part of the year. And whenat this time they kill their large pickling hogs, after they are scalded, and thefleshy pieces have been sprinkled with salt, for drawing out the bloody gravey, theycut almost all the lean from off the fat, and leave the pieces as fat as they wellcan 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 thepieces of pork, a man is there on purpose to press down every one as tight as hecan possibly; and this he does to prevent the[i]r swim[m]ing in the brine, for ifthey swim, they will rust and spoil: The pork being thus salted and pressed downin a pickling tub (for here they refuse the earthen glazed pot) they have a woodencover in a hoop, that shuts or covers the tub so close, that it prevents the airgetting to the pork. And when they want to take out a piece, they do it with a forkas it lies on the top, for they never meddle with an under piece, to the displacingof an upper one; and to prevent the necessity of using such a tub of pickled porktoo 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 thereforethey 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 inthe best manner of all others, that they say, it will eat almost like marrow whenit is rightly boiled; and thus their pickled pork becomes the chief, and almost theonly meat the Suffolk farmer's-family feeds on: Accordingly, it is said, thatwhen 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, orgristly lean Parts of a Hock of Pork.--These, or any part of them, may be madea good family pleasant dish, thus:--Lay them in a glazed earthen pot, and strew overthem some salt, pepper, onions, one or more bay leaves; over these pour water tillit is above them, bake it two or three hours, and keep it as it comes out of theoven 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 prettyway of doing this with a breast, or any other part of the hog that will admit ofrolling into a collar: The flesh must be taken from the bones, and rubbed over withsalt, 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 withonly thyme, parsley and sage; roll it in a hard collar in a cloth, tie it at bothends, boil it, and when cold, keep it in a soucing drink.

  Rabisha's Way to souce a Pig in Collars.--Chineyour pig (says he) in two parts, take out all the bones, and lay it to soak in waterall night; next day scrape off all the filth from the skin or back part, and wipeit 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 youput it in, keep it scumming till it is half boiled; when boiled enough, keep it ina 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 witha mixture of salt, thyme, and parsley; roll it hard with filletting, and boil itin two quarts of water with the bones; which put into about a quart of vinegar, ahandful 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 isinglassif you please) some salt, vinegar, mace, and two or three bay leaves; this boil byitself a very little while, when cold put in the two collars, and keep them in itas a soucing drink or pickle; if this pickle is made strong, it is said to preservesuch collars sweet half a year together, but the head must be eaten presently. Theseseveral ways were printed by old authors, and inserted by several new ones, in theirlate collections.

  Rabisha's Way to bake a Pig.--Scald it (sayshe) and slit it in the midst, flay it and take out the bones, season it with pepperand salt, cloves, mace, and nutmeg, chop sweet herbs fine, with the yolks of twoor three new laid eggs, and parboiled currants; then lay one half of your pig intoyour 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) bothhot 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 earthenpan, with a paper over it to keep it from being scorched; and for sauce, she employsthe brains, gravey and currants.--But John Murrell gives his printed receitthus: 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: Intwo hours time it will be baked, then mix some vinegar and sugar, and pour it byway of a layer over the pye with scraped sugar.--Again Rabisha says, to improvea 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; makethe paste white and good, and after it is out of the oven, put in some sweet butter.

  To roast a Pig.--Murrell says, to makea pudding to put in its belly, take grated bread, half a pound of minced suet, ahandful of currants and cloves, mace, nutmeg, and ginger in powder, with salt andsugar, 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 gratedbread; the sauce is vinegar, butter, and sugar, and minced hard yolk of egg withit.--But I think the plainer way better than this, which is to mix salt with choptsage and parsley, and sew it in the pig's belly; put paper round it, to keep it fromscorching, 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 withmustard; 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 itfor 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 ofeggs with grated nutmeg, then cut slices of your collar, and dip them in it; thenfry them, and eat with mustard and sugar. Or you may broil a chine, or other properpiece 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 mortaror otherwise, with powder'd spices and shred sage, crums of bread and flower, fry'din little balls, or in little square pieces, in a pan of lard.

  A Yorkshire Cook-Maid's Way to pickle Pork.--Sherubs the pieces over night with only brown sugar, and lays them sloping on a tableor bench to drain, next day she rubs on them salt-petre powder, mixed with commonsalt 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 cheapestManner the Hertfordshire Way.--A hog's haslet is to be composed of thesticking-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, werun a stick, or very large skewer, through every one of the pieces of meat; but beforewe 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 thehog round the haslet, for preventing its scorching, and causing it to come moistout of the oven with gravey and fat in the earthen-pan it lay over; if the caul isfrom a small hog, it is but little enough to lay over and cover the haslet, but iffrom a large hog, half the skinny part may be sufficient, and the thick fat partcut in bits, for being melted and try'd up with the fat of the belly-piece; bothwhich, being a sort that will not keep sweet so long as lard, may be made use ofto fry pancakes, &c. This is the most profitable way of all others todress 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 glazedearthen pot, to be kept for frying meat with, &c. And as the gravey liquoris left behind in the pan, it serves for palatable sopping, and in the whole, givesa family a delightful nourishing dish.--But if the haslet is to be roasted, the verysame preparation will do, only instead of running a skewer through the pieces ofmeat, they must be spitted; but as roasting a haslet is more troublesome and costlythan baking it, where a person has an opportunity, the last way is to be preferred.--Asecond way to roast a haslet, though more costly than the first, is, to cut the heartin thin and the liver in thicker pieces, about the bigness of a hand, with the fatcrow, sweetbread, and sticking-piece only. This done, besmear the pieces with beateneggs, 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 offat 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 FamilyMince-Pyes with a Hog's-haslet.--For this we make use only of the lights, thesticking-piece, and heart; and if they are of an old hog, they must be first boiledan hour, or till they are tender. This being done, they must be first chopt or mincedvery 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-Pyesfor a large Family, with a Haslet, &c. is this.--Against the time that ahog 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 themtogether till they are tender. Next they chop and mince both very small, and likewiseboil 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 withsuch minced meat, there may be be several pyes made, to be eaten hot or cold, whichmay be baked in earthen or tin pans, or as pasties in turnover crust. This is muchin practice in and about the town of Tring in Hertfordshire, partlybecause 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 makePork Pyes, or turn-over Pork-pasties in Harvest-time.--As it is one of the bestpieces of husbandry, on the victualling account, to kill a porker at the beginningof harvest; so it is a good piece of housewifery to make the best use of the offald-piecesof 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, andother 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 thanordinarily necessary to be done, because these pyes or pasties are to be kept somedays for being eaten cold: This done, make a regular mixture of the fat and leanpieces; if there be not fat pieces enough, the pye will eat dry, and if there betoo much fat, it will be apt to make the harvest-men sick. Now with these fleshyand bony bits of meat, several large pyes may be made, and baked, either in raisedpaste, in earthen pans, or in pewter dishes, or in the shape of turn-over two-corner'dpasties, and thus they become a most necessary and convenient food at this time ofthe year, for farmers families in particular, because the cold pyes or pasties area portable, wholesome, and satiating victuals for breakfast or dinner; but in coldweather, the blade-bones of a porker are generally broiled, and not chopt in bitsto bake in pyes. N. B. Thus it is our Hertfordshire way to make pyesof the short bony pieces, and boil the coarse fleshy pieces first; so that our housewifesalts down or pickles only the fine fat pieces clear of all bone, as being the onlyway to eat all the flesh of a porker in sweet order; for if the bony pieces are saltedand pickled down, it's a great chance if they do not stink. And it is by these housewifelygood managements that we dare to kill porkers, even of thirty stone weight, in thehottest weather of summer, with an assurance of keeping the meat from tainting, providedwe have a good cellar.--A second receit is, To cut the lean part of a porker, withsome of its fat part, and mix and beat them together. This done, season them withnutmeg, mace, pepper, and salt; and between every piece of this beaten meat, laya small thin cut of hard fat, as that of the chine or such like. When all is putinto the pye-crust, put bits of butter on the top of it, with some claret, just asthe pye is put into the oven.--A third receit is, that in case you roast or boila 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 muchof potatoes as there is pork, pare them, and cut the potatoes and pork into smallbits; season it with salt and pepper, and lay it in a pye-crust, putting pieces ofbutter 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 whitewine, over which lay bits of butter, then close up, and bake the pye.

  The Hertfordshire (or this Author's) Wayof baking pickled Pork.--This is much practised in my own family, and many otherfamilies in Hertfordshire, as a valuable piece of good housewifery; becauseno meat comes so cheap to the farmer as pickled pork, rightly managed, for preventinga butcher's bill, and is performed in two different manners; one is, by baking apiece of pickled pork in an earthen pan or dish, with a pudding by its side. Theother is to lay a piece of it singly a little hollowish on a pan, with apples orpotatoes under it. But in either case, the piece of fat pickled pork should be soakedand shifted in fresh water several times, for a day or two before it is made useof, to lessen the sharpness of the salt. This dish, if the pork is cut or hack'din the skin, baked and eaten with apple-sauce or potatoes, will prove so much likeroasted pork, as hardly to be distinguished from it. And thus by only changing theform of dressing pickled pork, a family eats it with a good appetite. Whereas ifit is dressed always one way, it is apt to cloy, and cause a grumbling for havingtoo often the same food dressed in the same manner. This and many other receits plainlyprove, that no one can be duly qualifed to write a book on Country Housewifery, unlesshe lives in the country, and carries on the farming business, for then he has anopportunity 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 heis imposed on or not.

  To make a Pork-pye to be eaten cold.--Cut themeat from off a loin of pork into thin pieces, and the same of veal, both which mustbe beaten flat with a cleaver. Then mix salt, pepper, minced sage and thyme, withsome yolks of eggs, and put it amongst the meat. Next lay your pieces of pork inthe 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 meltedbutter.

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

  A Leg of Pork broiled, according to Rabisha'sReceit.--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 mincedexceeding 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 theother side. This done, mix mustard, vinegar and sugar, with melted butter.

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

  To broil Pork Steaks.--The best steaks for thispurpose are those cut off a loin of pork; after they are beat thin with the broadpart 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 mixedwith 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 broilthem; then sauce them with melted butter, vinegar, shalot, gravey, and mustard.

  The Hertfordshire Way of roasting Jointsof 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, gratedbread, shred sage, salt, onions, and pepper. The same they do by the chine, whichalso is very good stuffed and roasted. But then these two sorts should not be toomuch salted. The hind and fore loins are likewise excellent meat when roasted, andsauced with a mixture of lemon-peel, mustard, butter, and sugar. When they are roastedabout a quarter of an hour, cut the skin or hack it about an inch broad. Others takethis way to roast a joint of pork supposing it to be a breast, they will take outthe bones in the manner they do the breast-part of venison; and when it has beenrubbed 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 skinoutward, 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 boilingit directly.--Take six ounces of common salt, and mix it with a quarter of anounce of salt-petre finely beaten to powder, which rub over all parts of a pieceof pork, whether it be a small leg or other joint, for the piece should not be largefor this quantity of salt. Then flower a linen-cloth pretty much, and tie up themeat close in it, which when boiled will be as salt as if it had been salted somedays before. If you think fit, you may leave out the salt-petre; but then you mustmake 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; thereforewhen haste requires it, the water must boil before it is put in, then rub your pieceof pork very well with common salt, and boil it, and while it is boiling, you mustput salt into the pot by degrees, little by little, till the water or pot liquoris 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, basteit 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; forby the heat of the fire, the salt is made to enter the fresh pork forthwith; andthen you may baste it in the usual manner.

  The Hertfordshire Farmers Wives Way of dressingthe 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 itis cut out; our farmers wives therefore make no more to do in dressing this, thanto cut the liver, the crow, and the sweet-bread, in pieces about two or three inchessquare, and fry them in the same fat the crow yields; and if they prove too thickshe cuts them thinner. When fry'd enough, it is eaten with mustard for an agreeabledinner to a whole family.--A second way to fry liver and crow is, to cut the liverinto 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 soakthe pieces of liver first in scalding water, and while this is doing, make a compositionwith eggs, water, flower, salt, shred sage, pepper, and grated bread; in which dipall 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 andother 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 thisgreat conveniency; because such souced meat is not only the cheapest sort, but isready at a minute's wanting it, to become a pleasant, wholesome, hearty meal; eithereaten cold from the soucing-drink, or being cut into pieces and fry'd. For thesereasons it is, that most of the good housewives of farmers who live about forty milesfrom London, and so on northward, commonly prepare and keep souced pork bythem (at times) from about Michaelmas 'till Lady-Day; for that at thisseason of the year the weather is generally cold enough to agree with soucing-drinkfor 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 goto a neighbouring public house, and ask the favour (when she had not the opportunityat home) to have the liberty of putting some water over their grains, after the strongbeer was brewed off; for you must know, that most of these publicans have not a fullvent for as much small beer as they could brew after their strong, and thereforerather than pay excise for small beer they are not sure to sell, which they leavethe grains in a hearty condition, and consequently seldom refuse to give a neighbourleave to run some water through them. Now it is this water or wort, that thus runsthrough the grains, which is the proper liquor to make soucing-drink of, becauseit is perfectly new, and free from the fermentation of yeast, for if yeast were putinto 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 porka disagreeable twang. When this is done, she puts a handful of salt or more intoabout two gallons of this malt-liquor, and boils it; and, when it is cold, it isa 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 branmust be drained off through a cullender or better through a hair-sieve. But for afurther 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 ofwheaten bran, and let it boil. Strain it through a hair-sieve, and throw in two handfulsof salt, so mix it with your beer aforesaid, and souce your pork therein. You mayalso take half a peck of fine flower of oatmeal, mix it with some liquor, and runit through a hair-sieve, and it will cause your souce to be white. Milk and wheyis used in this case; but your milk will not keep so long: you may put both in boilingthereof, it will cause it to boil white. Keep your souce close cover'd; and whenit 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 thefat that in boiling will swim on the top of the liquor, and reserve it to join agreater 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 wheatharvest time, which commonly lasts about a fortnight, our men set out for the fieldby four of the clock in the morning, and return home about eight at night. In Lentgrain 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, theyeat a little bread and cheese or apple-pye, with a draught of small beer, or halfa pint of strong each man, in part of his quart for one day: At eight o'clock somesend, for breakfast, boiled milk crumbled with bread; others, milk-porridge withbread; others, posset with bread, and bread and cheese besides, or instead of breadand cheese, apple-pasty; others send into the field, for breakfast, hashed or mincedmeat left the day before; others send it cold (as left) but hashing or mincing isbest, because if it is a little tainted, it is thus taken off by a mixture of shredonions and parsley, or with butter and vinegar, which relishes it, and makes it wellsuffice for a breakfast, and now they drink only small beer. At dinner time, whichshould be always at one o'clock, the victuals should be in the field; for it wasthe saying of a notable housewife, that as the men expected it at that hour, if itwas not brought accordingly, they would lag in their work, and lose time in expectingit. Broad beans and bacon or pork one day, and beef with carrots, or turnips, orcabbage, 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 ofvictualling harvest-men is not a general rule; for I know a farmer that rents abovea hundred a year in Hertfordshire, and employs half a score hands in harvesttime, who kept his men almost a week together on only fat bacon and pudding, andwhen 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 aright time for saving the expence of buying meat at market; the dressing of whichto 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 withsome apple-pasty, and drink some strong beer; then to work again, and hold it tillnear eight of the clock at night, when all leave off and come home to supper, whereis prepared for them, messes of new milk crum'd with bread, or posset sugar'd andcrum'd with bread, or fat bacon or pickled pork boiled hot with broad beans; butalthough fat bacon at night is in common use with some farmers, with roots or withbeans, yet others refuse to make this supper victuals, because it is apt to makemen sick. No matter, say some, we must give them that which cloys their stomachssoonest. But my way is this: I allow them most nights a supper on hot milk crum'dwell with bread, apple-pasty, and bread and cheese if they will eat it.--Others sometimesgive 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, ofmore than three parts arable land, who therefore employs about ten harvest-men, feedsthem with fresh and salt meat, which is chiefly that of his own providing, by fattingold ewes or weather sheep in summer, for killing in harvest; but whether they beewes 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 pyesor pasties, so highly seasoned with pepper and salt, that they will keep sweet andsound a week or two, provided the fly is kept off; but, besides his killing suchan old sheep now and then in harvest, he kills one or two porkers, which his familyeats fresh as long as it lasts so, and salts the rest: These, with a lot of beefnow and then from the butcher's shop, supplies his harvest people all the harvest-timewith 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 employedabout 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 toeat hot after it.--A great farmer had a mess of hot milk got ready for his harvest-mento eat as soon as they arose, and about eight o'clock sent them minced meat, breadand cheese, and pasty.--By this method each man is allowed a quart of strong beeror ale in a day, and is fed five several times, to support him under his early andlate hard work in reaping, mowing, loading and unloading of corn, grass, hoeing ofturnips, &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 restthat 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 betterworth ten pounds a year wages, than some of the more ignorant, slow, and carelesssort 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 hastwo paces upon occasion, an ordinary and extraordinary one.--Some also of our Aylsbury-Valehousewives feed their harvest-men with rice-milk, and at other times with furmity.

  The valuable Uses of Cheese to Yeomen and FarmersFamilies in Harvest-time.--This family article, I think, deserves a paragraphin my book, because cheese is an indispensable necessary food in all yeomens andfarmers families throughout the year, but most of all in harvest-time; for so greata stress is then laid on this eatable, that every day while the harvest lasts, themen about four of the clock in the afternoon (as I have before observed) sit downin the field for about half an hour, which they call cheesing-time, by reasonthat in this space of time they eat a piece of bread and cheese, and commonly drinka 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 thistime they are obliged to work in harvest the hardest and longest, and therefore morethan ordinarily covet this sort of refreshment, as well to ease their backs fromtheir 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 ourfarmers think it no lost time to ride to Baldock-Fair, which lies about fivemiles from Gaddesden, and is held on the 24th day of February, thereto 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 tosave the cheese-penny in another shape, some yeomen and farmers are so frugal asto keep the thick strong Cheshire cheese, as well as thin cheese in theirhouses for using the Cheshire at supper, and the thin at other times: Whereforeas cheese is eat at almost every meal in harvest-time, it concerns a yeoman or farmerto keep by them or buy old, and not new cheese; for though new cheese, perhaps, maybe bought for a half-penny or more a pound less than old, yet some sort of it willgo away near as soon again as old.

  To make Harvest Posset, the HertfordshireWay.--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'dwith bread, or milk-porridge with bread; but for supper, we often give the harvest-mena posset crum'd with bread, made in this plain manner: The maid-servant boils newmilk, and when it is so done, she puts about a pint of it into each man's woodendish, and immediately adds a quarter of a pint of stale strong beer, some coarsesugar and crumbled bread, which turns the milk into a posset, and gives the men apalatable supper; but if our country housewife has a mind to make a better possetshe may:--Take a quart of new milk, and mix it with a pint of ale, the yolks of eighteggs, 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 tillit is thick (but it must not boil) and it's done for eating; but if you will havethe posset richer, use cream instead of milk. Or to make a sack-posset:--Take a quartof milk or cream, boil it with sugar, mace, and nutmeg; then take half a pint ofsack, and half a pint of ale, and boil these well together with sugar; then put yourmilk or cream to your sack and ale in a bason, cover it with a hot dish, and setit two or three hours by a fire before you eat it. Or you may bake a sack-possetthus:--Beat eight eggs, and strain them into a quart of milk or cream, season themwith nutmeg and sugar, then put to them a pint of sack, stir them together and putthem into a bason, and set it in the oven no hotter than for a custard; let it standtwo hours.--Or, grate three penny Naples-biskets, and boil them with nutmeg and sugarin a quart of milk or cream; then warm a pint of sack and put it into a bason, andon that pour your boiled cream by a high fall, when after a little time standingit may be eaten. But for an ordinary sack-posset--Sir Kenelm Digby says, boila pint of milk, and as soon as it boils take it off, and let it cool a little, forby so doing, says he, the curd will be the tenderer; then pour it into a pot, whereinare two spoonfuls of sack and four of ale, sugar it, and let it stand by a fire-sidetill you eat it.

  To make Wigs for Harvest-men the HertfordshireWay.--Our way is to make use of no butter, because we cannot well spare it frommarket; and therefore we use only a little cream put among new milk, which servesinstead 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 toferment and rise, we make into wigs, without colouring them with yolks of eggs, asthe usual way is; neither do we put them into tin pins, but set them on a peal, andlay them to bake at the oven's mouth (as we do our common dough cakes) for abouthalf an hour; and this we generally do about six o'clock in the evening, that theymay be hot against the men come home to supper from reaping, when we toss one ofthese large wigs to each man for his dipping it in a bowl of ale, which serves foran agreeable cooling supper with cheese or other things. Thus, as we think thesesort of plain wigs are a cheap and pleasant food to our workmen, our frugal housewivesgenerally make some of them twice a week, sometimes alone, and sometimes they bakethem when they bake bread; so that the farmhouse is seldom without some of thesewigs, or seed or plumb cake all harvest; for the making of which I shall give directionsby and bye, after I have shewed our housewives to make richer wigs, if they thinkfit.--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, andafter it has lain to ferment and swell, make it into wigs and bake them.--Or, takethree quarters of a pound of butter, and mix it with a pottle of fine flower, andhalf a pound of sugar, nutmeg, mace, and grated ginger, four beaten eggs and halfa pint of ale yeast, with a little Canary, if you please: These mix with a littlewarm milk, and knead the whole into a light dough, to stand about half an hour beforea fire to ferment and swell; then just before they go into the oven, wash the wigsover with beaten yolks of eggs; if the oven is quick in fire, they will be bakedin half an hour on tin plates.

  A common Country Baker's Way of making Wigs.--Thisbaker 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 methodto 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 Lutonin 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 beingkneaded 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 tosay, it is sent into the field about four of the clock in the afternoon with somecheese, for the harvest-men to eat this cake dry with, or to dip it in ale; and sometimesit serves for supper victuals, as also for entertaining a neighbour or stranger witha cup of ale; so that a good housewifely farmer's wife is seldom without this cakeor wig, or plumb-cake, especially in harvest-time, and thinks this seed-cake goodenough for these purposes without eggs or butter, though some of the abler sort addhogs-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 inas a cooling beaver or supper, after hard labour in hot weather. Others of our countryhousewives make use of a tin hoop, and laying doubled brown paper at the bottom ofit well flower'd they put the paste into it, and when it is out of the oven theyunscrew a pin, and the hoop parts free of the cake. But, for a choice of better sortof seed-cakes, take the following accounts how to make them.

  To make a good Seed-cake.--Work two pounds anda half of fine flower, with a pound and half of fresh butter, seven eggs, a tea-cupfull of cream, and three spoonfuls of ale-yeast, into a paste, which set by a fire-sideto ferment and rise; then work in a quarter of a pound of carraway comfts; an houror thereabouts bakes it in a butter'd tin hoop. Or--Mix three grated nutmegs withsome beaten mace, and put it to half a peck of flower; then take two pounds of freshbutter, and melt it with two quarts of hot cream, and when cooled, mix it with apint of yeast, and a pound and half of carraway-seeds, and some chopt orange or lemonpeel; knead the whole into a thin paste just before it goes into the oven, and bakeit 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 largefamily in the bigness of half a peck one: It must have more yeast work'd into theflower than is allowed for a houshold-bread loaf, because it must be hollowish andspungy, somewhat of the wig kind; then melt butter, and knead it into dough withsugar 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 beaveror supper, or with cheese or spread butter.

  A Hertfordshire Plumb-cake for Harvest.--Thiscake is made with a quart of flower, a quartern of currants, or half a pound of Smyrnaraisins (for we reckon that currants go as far again as these plumbs in a puddingor cake) a quartern of sugar, four spoonfuls of yeast, some warm milk made betterby the addition of a little cream, grated nutmeg, and some carraway-seeds; mix andknead these into a paste, and after it has lain to rise and ferment, make it intoa cake and bake it at the oven's mouth, when bread is baked: Such a cake some farmerswives 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 entertainmentfor a neighbouring visiter, as being a ready bit with cheese and a mug of ale, withoutbutter, 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 maywith half a peck of flower mix one pound of melted butter, two pounds and a halfof currants, a little salt, some powder'd cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, half a poundof 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 flowerwith twelve eggs, a quarter of a pint of cream, a pound and half of butter, and twopowder'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 halfa peck of flower; this done, boi[l] half a pound of butter with cream, let it beluke-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 fiveeggs, or half a pint of sack, and one pound of currants; this being kneaded, letit lie by a fire-side till it rises, and bake it in a tin hoop. But if any one wantsto make a richer plumb-cake than any of these, he may--Mix six pounds of currantswith 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 ofcream, with two pounds of sugar.

THIS I take to be one of the best pieces of housewifery belongingto a farmer's, yeoman's, or gentleman's family; because it is in a large family attendedwith considerable profit, when bacon or pickled pork, salt beef, or any sort of freshmeat is boiled, roasted or baked, and the fat is in quantity enough to be scum'doff and saved: Wherefore she that does not this, but suffers such fat with the pot-liquorto be given to hogs or dogs, is a sorry housewife indeed; and yet as great a faultas this is, there are too many guilty of it.--Or, if they give themselves the troubleof 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, becausea mixture of such fats will, if not used at home, sell to the tallow-chandler fortwo-pence half-penny or three-pence a pound: But when the fat of roasted or bakedmeats is saved and try'd up, that is to say, when it is boil'd, scum'd, and afterit is settled cold in a glazed earthen pot, and the jelly dross taken from the purehard 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 thefat is poured off from its watry dreggy parts, the longer it keeps sound; and forits better coming out of such a glazed pot, it should be just rinced with water asthe fat goes into it: Others, when the fat is cold, pour half a pint or more of coldwater on its top, for that by this the fat will the easier come loosely out, andif shifted now and then with fresh water, it will be preserved sweet some time. Thefats from only boiled bacon or pickled pork are soft fats of the worser sort, yetmay serve, when try'd up to fry pancakes, or make ordinary pye-crust for farmersservants and poor mens families; but these are improved when try'd up with the fatof salt beef, or fresh roasted, baked, or boiled meats; however, at worst, thesefats will serve for greasing cart-wheels, preserving white-leather harness, and makingcandles for country villages, &c. 

H OWwe try or dry up the pure fat Part of a Porker or Bacon Hog, which we call Lard orSeam.--In a day or two after the hog is killed, we generally try or dry up thefat of it, and begin with tearing off the skinny part of the flair, and cutting offthe coarse ends of it, for then there will remain nothing but the pure lardy fatpart. This we cut into bits a little bigger than dice, and put them into a metalpot, to heat over a gentle fire to melt by degrees; and as it melts we take it offthe fire, and thus we serve it several times, to drain away the fat through a pewteror 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 severaltimes, 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 anagreeable flavour.

  How we try or dry up the offald fat Part of a Porkeror 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 thatof a porker, it is but small enough to put over and cover the haslet, that is tobe 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 caulis generally large enough to use part of it for this purpose, and part to melt ordry up for keeping fat. Or if none of it is employed this way, the whole is cut intolittle bits and melted down. Secondly, as the ends of the flair consist of a coarsebloody fat, we generally cut them off from the better fat, and melt them with thecaul fat. And, thirdly, we do the same with the thickest end of the belly-piece ofa large porker, or bacon hog; with this difference, that as this fat is of a kernellyand harder nature than the other two sorts, we cut it smaller. This done, we meltthese last three fats in a pot or kettle, over a gentle fire, and as it melts wesqueeze and press it out thro' a cullender by degrees, till nothing is left but thedry dreggy part, which we call crinklings, that are commonly eaten by our plowmenand other servants, with only a little salt strew'd over them. Now these three offaldsorts of fat, so melted together, we keep in a glazed earthen pot, by itself, forpresent occasions, to fry pancakes, make pye-crust, and using it on some other culinaryaccounts, because this sort of fat will not keep so long sweet, nor is it so whiteand palatable as the more pure flair fat part is; but as to the gut fat, we generallymelt it by itself, and save it for greasing our waggon and cart wheels, for if thiswas melted with better fat, it would taint it, because it retains the strong scentof the dungy guts.

  How to preserve Hogslard or Seam fresh.--AsI said, we seldom do any thing else, for preserving our lard sweet, than to boilit with a little rosemary, and squeeze out the pure from the gross part: But thereis an old receit, that says, to preserve lard sweet and fresh for some time, it shouldbe 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 adry place, and it will remain untainted from mustiness, or any other ill scent, someyears; for if lard is kept in a damp cellar it will grow rank, and if too much inthe 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 ofverjuice is but enough to boil with six pounds of lard, till it is wasted, accordingto the opinion of some, but I think a lesser quantity of that liquor may serve. Mostof the hogslard that is sold in London, is sent out of the country in hogsbladders, because it is the lightest, safest, and cheapest carriage, else it wouldbe sent in glazed earthen pots.

H OWto prepare Guts or Skins for filling them to make Sausages.--Sausages are generallymade 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 readershow to prepare skins for them; which deficiency I here undertake to supply, by givinga 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 intosix or eight such pieces; stroke the dung out, and put them into water just to wetthem, then turn them inside-out, by the help of a stick, wash them, and scrape apiece at a time as it lies on a table, with the back of a knife drawn along the insideskin thus turned outwards, and it will come off in two or three times scraping, andwithout breaking the gut, if it be rightly done; and in the same manner, the outwardskin with scraping will come off at the end of the gut; then there will only remainthe middle skin, that will appear about the bigness of a wheat straw. And when allthe pieces of the guts are thus scraped, cleaned, and prepared, put them into watermade just lukewarm, for if it is too hot, they are all spoiled. Now in this lukewarmwater the guts must be washed clean; then put them into a glazed earthen pot, withsalt enough strewed over them, and they will keep sweet as long as you please. Andthat the skins may appear truly fine and clear, put one end to your mouth and blowit, and then you may easily perceive whether the gut is entirely free of all outwardskin 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 foreloin, but the former exceeds; yet there is a profit to be made sometimes of a foreloin, which cannot be done with the hind loin, and that is, when sausages are madein a town where gentry live, they sometimes bespeak and buy the bones of a fore lointo broil, and then there is the more meat left on them, because for these they generallygive an extraordinary price, as the sweetest meat lies next to the bones, and eatsomewhat like that of a spare-rib; otherwise the flesh is cut quite off from thebones, as clean as can be well done. The meat, thus taken off the bones, must becut into little bits, and chopt as small as possible, till a whole bit cannot befound in it bigger than a pea free of its skin, for the skin must be first takenoff the loin; and while it is chopping, four or five spoonfuls of water must be nowand then mix'd among the meat, for this will cause it to chop the better, increaseits 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, inthe exact method this is done; and is of such importance, as occasioned a personto give out selling sausages, merely for want of knowing this piece of good management.

  How a Person set up to sell Sausages in a MarketTown in Bedfordshire, and broke for want of knowing how to make them in aright 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 livedin, but carry'd many to other places for publick sale; and as he sold these, withpyes, 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 beganto make sausages, but not knowing how to mix water with the meat in chopping, soongave over his new employ, because his sausages eat dryer, harsher, and were not nearso 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 mixtin 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 isstuffed into the guts, with salt and water; but no mention is made of what sort ofguts, nor how they are to be prepared, nor how to mix the water with the meat inchopping, and therefore is an imperfect one, for meat cannot be chopt full smallwithout watering it in chopping, and if it be beat much to supply watering, the meatwill be dryer and eat worse.

  How to make compleat Sausages for Sale, or for aprivate Family.--The meat being prepared as before mentioned, as it lies on thechopping 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 makesthe sausages eat the pleasanter, half a pound of such grated bread is enough forone loin of pork; then beat black pepper and Jamaica pepper, as much of theone 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 mixthis likewise with the meat, though some dry it and rub its powder in, but in thismanner the sage is apt to lose some of its virtue; therefore sage is kept dry inits leaves in winter, and chopt as the green sage is, by which means the sage willmake an agreeable green spotted appearance through the gut when filled. The massof 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 ofan inch wide at bottom. This being filled with the chopt meat, and the little endput into the gut, the meat is forced into it by a finger pushing it down; and whena pound of it is thrust thus into a fathom-long piece of gut, and made all alikeround, 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, andfarmer's family, clear of that extraordinary expence that some receits may lead peopleinto; as when white-wine, eggs, oisters, and other chargeable ingredients are madeuse 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--Tochop a leg of pork very small, and mix it with a sufficient quantity of hog's hardfat, some Jamaica pepper, black pepper, salt, marjoram, and sage, all cutand 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, thefillets of young porkers, three parts lean, and one fat, to the weight of five andtwenty pounds; season it well in the small shredding, and beat it in a mortar withpepper and salt, a little grated nutmeg, and a pint of white-wine mixt with a pintof hog's blood; then stir and beat it all together, till it is very small; add afew sweet herbs, chopt small and bruised, as pennyroyal, sweet marjoram, and wintersavory; then with a whalebone bow open the mouths of the guts you are to fill withthis meat, and thrust it leisurely down with a clean napkin, lest, forcing it withyour 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 clearand the wind brisk, then hang them in rows at a little distance one from the otherin your smoak loft, and when they are well dried, rub off the dust they have contractedwith a clean cloth; anoint them over with sweet oil, and cover them with a dry earthenvessel, and, either roasted or boiled, they will equal those so much boasted of fromthis city in Italy.--Or make use of the gammon part of a bacon hog, whichshred small with a like quantity of lard and sweet herbs as above; work it with red-wineand the yolks of eggs, till it becomes a paste fit to be put into skins, so thatthe 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.--Butto 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 smallinto a paste and fill the biggest guts of a sheep, or instead thereof the guts ofan ox; then hang the sausages in a dry place not too near the fire, and they willkeep a twelve-month round; their usual size is a foot long, and should be boiledjust 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 beefsuet, with pepper, cloves, mace, and a little salt-petre and bay-salt, into a pasteconsistence, it will be fit to fill large skins with; some add the powder of a fewdried bay leaves: then dry them in or near a chimney.

  To make Sausages without Skins.--Take the legof a young porker, and cut all the lean free of skin and strings; then take two poundof beef suet, and shred it small; this done, chop sage and onion, and mix them withpepper, salt, and nutmeg; all which ingredients must be cut and minced small, andwhen minced small enough, add the yolks of two or three eggs, and make the compostinto a paste: Now this paste may be kept sweet a fortnight, and when used, it mustbe 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 handfulsof sage, the crumb of a two-penny loaf grated, salt and pepper to your taste, andchop all pretty small together; but, in the first place, be sure to cut out all skinand gristles, and when all is well mixed together knead them into a paste prettystiff with the yolks of two or three eggs, and roll it (when you are ready to useit) into the shape of sausages, and fry them.

  How to preserve naked Sausages.--To make sausagesfor 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 veryclose, and they will keep, if season'd enough, almost half a winter good. And whensuch potted down meat is to be used, take some of it out, roll it in flower in theshape of sausages, and fry them, or broil them: This is the most in practice amongstfarmers for their family uses.

  How to preserve Sausages in Links.--If sausagesin links are to be kept some time, they may be so done by laying them in a glazedpot, and when they are all placed in it, then pour on them salt water. This methodis 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 thesausages may not lose any thing of their weight.--Another receit says, make use ofdouble the weight of fat to the lean of pork, and mix with four pounds weight ofthis meat a nutmeg in powder, and as much cloves and mace as the nutmeg, with pepperand salt; then chop a handful of sage, a small parcel of thyme, and mix the wholewith a handful of grated bread, all mixed very small, and put into skins. Thus farthe receits are pretty well; but here is no mention made how to chop the meat withwater, 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 intoslices, 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 quantityof pork is shred, observing to begin and end with the lean; then with a sharp knifecut it through and through divers ways, and mix it all well together; then take storeof sage, and shred it exceeding small, and mix it with the flesh; then give it agood seasoning of pepper and salt, take the guts made as long as possible, and notcut in pieces as for puddings, first blow them well to make the meat slip, and fillthem; which done, take thread, and with it divide them into several links as youplease, then hang them up in the corner of some chimney clean swept, where they maytake the air of the fire, and let them dry there at least four days before any beeaten; 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 withthe Flesh of a Fowl or Rabbit.--Take pork, but not as much fat as lean, mincethem exceeding small together; then take part of the flair of pork in bits aboutthe bigness of the top of a finger, season it with minced sage, good store of pepperand salt, some cloves and mace; then take small sheeps guts and cleanse them, sofill them with your funnel, always putting some of the pieces of flair between theminced; you may sprinkle a little wine on the top of your sausage meat, and it willfill 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 sausageas pork, by reason sage and pepper are not so suitable to the other two sorts. Tieup the sausages in links, and keep them for use.

H OWto prepare Skins for filling them to make Black Hogs Puddings.--To prepare thesein a pure sweet housewifely manner, the guts of a barrow hog should be extraordinarilywell cleansed; for which purpose, one person should hold open a gut, while anotherby a funnel pours water into it, for driving and washing out all the dung, and iswhat must be nicely done, till the gut is clean emptied, and discharged of all thefilth; then we turn it inside-out, and wash it thoroughly two or three times; atlast 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 tomake Black Hogs Puddings.--As soon as the hog is stuck by the butcher, the bloodshould be catched in a glazed earthen pot, some salt first put into it, and stirredabout all the while with a wooden paddle. When you have thus got the blood, the saltwill preserve it sweet without clotting a week together in winter; then get readya 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 immediatelytake it off the fire, for emptying both oatmeal and water into an earthen glazedpot 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 itsome crumbled bread, pennyroyal, and onion cut small, with some chopt bits of hogshard fat. These being all well mixed together, begin to fill a gut a yard long, withthe same tin fill-bowl instrument that you did the sausages with, and when it isabout three parts filled, and squeezed all of a thickness, tie each gut so filledat each end with thrum-thread; and while water is boiling, put these puddings intoit, and boil them till they become dark colour'd and tender, which will be in aboutan hour's time; then take them out of the water, and while they are hot, twist theminto links, ready to be dressed, by either broiling or frying them.--Thus black hogspuddings may be made in the very best housewifely manner for cheapness, and yet goodenough for a farmer's family, or for sale: Not but that there are several other waysto make black hogs puddings, according to different receits. One whereof says--Grindoatmeal 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 twelvehours 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, gutsare to be filled with it, and when tied up in lengths, they must be boiled and hungup near a chimney to dry.-- Another says, boil a haslet in about five gallons ofwater till tender, then drain out the liquor, and while it is boiling, put in a peckof whole oatmeal, which is to boil but fifteen minutes: Then let the grouts and waterstand 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 andsome hogs fat of the flair cut into dice bits; which put into the guts, till everygut is three parts of it filled, and then put the puddings into boiling water toboil 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.--Anothersays, 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 withpowdered cloves, mace, nutmeg, marjoram, lemon, thyme, pennyroyal and salt, makea mixture, and when all is mixed, fill the guts, and boil them directly.--Anothersays, boil the liver of a hog till it is enough, and bruise it in a mortar with halfthe 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 justcut in the mill, after being first soaked twenty hours in water: When all these arebrought into a requisite consistence, put it into the guts, tie them up, and boilthem 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.--Asthe eating variety of viands enlarges the appetite, our country housewife may makewhite hogs puddings as well as black ones; and indeed, it is the more necessary soto do, where persons have an aversion to the eating of blood, as many have. Goodwholesome white hogs puddings may be eaten with pleasure, with a very little troubleof cooking them, for on a gridiron they are presently broiled: But to make thesegood 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 frugalmanager, as follows, viz.--Take hogs guts, and after the dung is washed outof them, scour them well with salt, then turn them once a day, and shift and washthem twice a day in spring water for a week together, to soak out all the tinctureof 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 thoroughlywhite and sweet, the meat cannot be agreeable.

  How to prepare the Meat for filling Skins to makeWhite Hogs Puddings.--This receit as well as my first for making black hogs puddingsare 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 whiteloaf, and three quarters of a pound of hogs fat chopt; the oatmeal must be boiledover night, in as little water as will just suffice, and this only for a quarterof 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 Jamaicaspice 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, thatfor these white puddings we make use of only the smallest guts, for if they wereof the larger sort, they would take up too much of the meat. The guts being thusfilled, boil them in yard-long pieces, about three quarters of an hour at most, forthese must not be boiled so long as black puddings; and as they boil, they must bereared up with a fork to the top of the water now and then, and pricked with a finefork 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 ina bunch, and place them singly on a table. Thus the process of this receit is finishedunder a plain preparation, free of those costly compositions with which several receitsto make white hogs puddings are stuffed, as may appear by the following accountsof 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, addfour ounces of currants, and as much almonds, marrow, and sugar, which beat and thoroughlymix together for filling hogs guts with it; they must be boiled, and the puddingsafterwards kept in a dry place till used.--Another receit directs to make use oftwelve or more eggs, and half the whites, which are to be beat up, and when a quartof cream boils, stir in the eggs on a gentle fire; to this must be added, when thecream is cooled, a pound of grated bread and nutmegs, two pounds of chopt suet, andhalf a pound of sweet almonds minced and beat fine with orange or rose water, saltand sugar, with which fill the guts and boil them, and prick them as they boil tokeep them from breaking.

  How to make white Hogs Puddings by an ancient Receit.--Steepgrouts in milk twelve hours, then boil a pint of cream, and put these grouts intoit, 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 theguts 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 whenyou are to serve them on a table, first boil them a little, then take them out, andtoast them brown before a fire, and so serve them, trimming the edge of the disheither with salt or sugar.--But here is no mention made how the hogs guts are tobe prepared, which is a strange deficiency, and seems as if the authors were personsignorant of the matter, for neither ancient nor modern receits shew this first andmost necessary article.

  How to make Gut Puddings with Hog's Liver, by anancient 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; thenmix it with cream, and put to it six yolks of eggs and two whites, and the gratedcrumb 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 morewholesome, and less loathing; then after it has stood a while fill the guts withit, 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 notscorch them, nor in any wise break their skins, which is to be prevented by oftenturning and tossing them on the gridiron, and keeping a slow fire.

  To make Gut Puddings with Hog's Liver, by one newand two old Receits.--Take a pound of beef suet, and mince it with the crumbof a two-penny white loaf small enough to pass through a cullender; then boil a poundof hog's liver, which grate and sift very fine. This done, boil a quart of creamwith 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 withit.--This receit seems to me to be the last ancient one reformed, as being somewhatbetter put together in a truer proportion of ingredients. But to shew the maker ofa hog's liver pudding in a more particular manner, I shall add the two followingold receits, viz.--Boil a hog's liver very dry, when cold grate it, and takeas much grated manchet as liver; sift them through a cullender, and season it withcloves, 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 suetminced small, eight eggs, put away the whites of four; temper your bread and liverwith 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 quartersfull of the aforesaid stuff; tie both ends together, and boil them in a kettle offair water, with a pewter dish under them with the bottom upwards, and it will keepyour puddings from breaking; when the water boils, put in your puddings, let themboil softly a quarter of an hour, and take them up; and so you may keep them in adry place a week or more: when you spend them, you must broil them.--The other receitruns thus, viz. Boil a hog's liver well, let it be thoroughly cold, then grateit like bread; then take grated bread, new milk, the fat of a hog minced fine, andput 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 onepart, 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.--Afterthe hogs humbles are tender boiled, take some of the lights, with the heart, andall the flesh about them, picking them from all the sinewy skins; then chop the meatas small as you can, and put to it a little of the liver very finely searsed, somegrated nutmeg, four or five yolks of eggs, a pint of good cream; two or three spoonfulsof 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 goto fill them in the guts, and lay the guts to steep in rose-water till you fill them. 

H OWto make Chitterlins.--These, if made as they should be, are pleasant and heartyvictuals; and that they may be such, take the guts of a barrow hog, a year, or ayear 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 rankerfood. In the first place, after the guts are cleansed from their dung, they mustbe turned inside out, and well scower'd with salt; then put them into cold springwater, and for three days together they must be shifted into fresh water twice aday, and turned and scoured with salt several times, till they are got thoroughlyclean 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 themrightly tender, though some boil them only two or three; but this is too short atime for causing such tough meat to eat soft and palatable; and if you put some milkinto the water they are boiled in, it will add to their whiteness and sweetness oftaste: But some, after the guts are clear'd of their dung, and at their first scouringwith salt, will with the salt rub them with sage: Others boil sage in their waterto take off their hogoo, for the preparation of chitterlins will prove the cleanlinessor sluttishness of a housewife, as much as any meat whatsoever will.

  To make a Chitterlin Pye.--This may be madea delicious family pye, if the chitterlins be duly prepared according to the foregoingreceit; then chop and mince them with some offald meat of the hog; this done, putit 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, andnutmegs grated; then lay your cover of paste over all, and bake it. Others make useof 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 boiledwith the chitterlins, and chopt and made into a pye with them, will become a heartyand pleasant food for either a farmer's, a yeoman's, or a gentleman's family. Itis true, that in harvest time, our servant maid is rather too busy to employ so muchof her time, as chitterlins require for cleaning them; besides which, the very hotweather, 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 awaythe guts of a sizeable porker or bacon hog.

  To boil, broil, or fry Chitterlins.--Is anotherpreparation, and the most common way of dressing them of all others; after they havebeen scoured with salt, and boiled the several hours before mentioned, they are presentlycook'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 farmerswives, and when they are so done, they will not eat right, unless boiled exceedingtender, 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, becauseit 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 baconis 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 pickledpork, it saves much in a numerous family, by preventing the large total of a butcher'sbill; for bacon in many farmers houses is the stay of the family. Where there isbread and bacon enough, there is no want; for these satiate the keenest appetitein a little time, will bear living on the longest of any meat, with a little changeof another sort. In the northern parts of England, thousands of families eatlittle other meat than bacon; and indeed, in the southern parts, more than ever liveon bacon, or pickled pork, or on both, since trade has lessened, and the number offamilies increased. One of the biggest and ablest farmers in our part of Hertfordshirefed his harvest-men most part of the harvest time with bacon. Near Rickmansworthin 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 andfifty 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 partmake into pasties; and by the agreeable sweetness of the hogslard, the pyes provedso 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 fora private Family.--This is the best way of all others; for where the bacon isrightly cured, the fat will look clear, and eat hard and sweet, and I may assuredlyadd, that it will keep longer sound than any other sort of bacon whatso[e]ver. Forbacon, we seldom kill a hog under a year old, but many older, till some weigh fiftyor sixty stone, for we cannot have too fat nor too large a flitch. And that it maybe the safer and better cured, our season for killing is, from Allhollantideto Lady-day, when the weather is generally cool enough for this purpose. InHertfordshire we generally singe or burn the hair off our bacon, and whenit is so done, we hang up the hog, and let it remain hanging all night; next morningwe cut out the whole chine, two spare-ribs, two but-pieces, two blade bones, andtwo short ribs, for we leave no more bone in the flitches than we can help. Thenwe rub the two flitches of a thirty, or forty, or fifty, or sixty stone hog, witha 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 whendischarged, we employ two ounces of salt-petre finely powder'd to the flitches ofa thirty stone hog, and so in proportion to a larger one: Then we presently makeuse 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 fleshyside of the other, and so let them remain ten days before we salt them again; andthen 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 ourwide country chimney corners to dry for a week or two, or three; if the chimney isa very wide one, and a slow fire is left, they may hang the longer, but if it bea 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 stonehog in March or April, we let the flitches hang but three or four daysin 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 todry 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 regardnot, when the knowing refuse it.

  Bacon made in several Parts of the West Country.--Ina certain part of this country, after the flitches have been a little salted, andlaid on a little descent for the bloody juice to drain off, the next day they mixsome 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 flitcheswell, and while they lie salted one upon another for two or three days, they shifttheir posture, and so on for two or three weeks, at the end of which they hang themupright over an oven, and in six weeks time they will be very sweetly and whitelycured.--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 themout, and rub on two large flitches four ounces of powder'd salt-petre, then immediatelysalt them well with all natural salt, and let them lie so three weeks, shifting themonce or twice in that time, before they hang them up in their chimneys to dry. Butsome let their flitches lie ten hours in brine, then salt them, and let them liea month salted; when they take and smoak them a day and a night, or more, as theweather is more or less open.--In another part, as in Wiltshire, they killhogs 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 theinside of the carcase very lightly, for preventing the flies damage; next morningthey cut it out, and lay it in brine six hours, to discharge the bloody part of theflesh; then with a mixture of some powder'd salt-petre and common salt they saltthe flitches soundly and lay them one upon another, and shift every second day, layingthe bottom flitch uppermost, and salting them more at three different times in afortnight; 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 avery great chimney or smoak-room, to dry leisurely a week or two. And thus theirgreat hogs, that weigh some above sixty stone, at eight pounds to the stone, areready to be cut for bacon in a month or six weeks time. But even these are not suchquick ways to prepare bacon for a market as is practised in another part, where theirwash-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; butin the pot, in the pan, and on the gridiron, it shews its loose nature, by its readyand easy parting with much of its fat, to the loss of the owner.

  What I was told by a London Seller of Bacon.--Thisperson in conversation, little mistrusting who he told the story to, was free intelling me, that some in very open weather begin to kill their hogs about three o'clockin the morning, and cut them out at seven or eight o'clock at night; then directlythrow the flitches into a very strong pickle for five, six, or seven days; then smoakthem twelve or four and twenty hours, and away to market with them. Otherwise, whenthey 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-roomfor a little while, and send them to market. These ways, he said, are sometimes practisedwhen there is a quick sale for bacon; but what must we call this? It hardly deservesthe name of bacon, rather the name of pork-bacon, and is a most profitable sort forthe seller; for it will weigh to his satisfaction, and may eat sweet and good forpresent spending, particularly in pease and beans season, but in course must growrank 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 vendedat London, much of it is sent to country markets, for selling it to poor peopleat low prices, to prevent its spoiling to intire loss. But this is not the case ofall the London-made bacon, for I am very sensible, that there are vast numbersof their wash-fed flitches of bacon laid in salt for two or three months togetherin their cellars, piled up one upon another, and shifted at times for preparing andcuring them in their smoak-rooms, and undoubtedly may be good bacon. As to theirsmoak room, it is a profitable contrivance, because they have plenty of smoak ata 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 atime as leisurely or as quick as they please; and thereby the bacon may be impregnatedwith smoak to such a degree, as will make it want the less salt, give the outsideof it a golden colour, and help the better to cure it for keeping some time; butthen 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 amanner, 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 itfor two or more months, and just before they hang them up in their smoak-room theywash their flitches in fair water, because the salt that remains without-side ofthem 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 chimneycorner, the fire will add a whiteness to them.

  A Farmer's Wife's true Country Way of preservingBacon in a white Colour.--This is a matter of importance, because it is not onlya cure to bacon, by salting it for a month and drying it well, but likewise to preserveit 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 monthin 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 strawinto it, for divesting it of all humidity and thoroughly drying it; this done, shelays some of it at the bottom of a chest kept in her chamber under the bed, and onthat the skinny side of a flitch of bacon; then she puts another layer of dried strawon this, and a second flitch upon that: And if she has several flitches of baconto preserve, she thus lays one flitch upon another with straw between them, and nevershifts the straw, but cuts the bacon as she wants it for her private family. AndI do avouch it for truth, that of all the bacon I ever eat in my travels, I nevermet with any that out-did this sort for palatableness, firmness, cleanness, and whitenessof flesh; and am not a little surprised to find, that no author I have hitherto readhas taken the least notice of this most excellent way of preserving bacon. And whatconsequence 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 ofEngland would not suffer his Bacon Hogs to singed, on Purpose to avoid theill Qualities of the Smoak.--This curious gentleman, owner of a large landedestate, was a person who made it the greatest pleasure of his life, to improve andenjoy one of his farms, of about 50 £. a year, which he kept in his ownhands. This gentleman, having a due knowledge of the ill effects of smoak, wouldnot suffer those hogs he killed for bacon to be singed, but scalded them as we inHertfordshire do our porkers, not only for avoiding the nasty unsavoury tangthat smoak impregnates the rind or skin and flesh of a hog with, but also for avoidingthe unwholesome qualities that attend all singed, smoaked bacon, when eaten withfowls, veal, or other viands; for that he thought such smoaked bacon gives thesemeats a disagreeable relish, and makes them become somewhat offensive to both palateand stomach. And since such smoaky bacon is as unwholesome as unsavoury, it oughtto be the more refused; and the fine white dried bacon, free of that pernicious smoakyquality, preferred to it. For smoak, by naturalists, is defined to be a stupifyingkeen 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 thatthe fire and air send forth. Fire, says one of these virtuosi, divides and separatesthe 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 qualityhas been seen or known. Smoak therefore, says he, is an excrement that all peopleendeavour to avoid, as being the most prejudicial to the fine volatile spirits, andtherefore most offensive to the eyes; for they are the gates of the whole body, wherethe 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, eitherinternally or externally. Therefore when any eat ill prepared food, or drink thelike drink, and when the heat of the stomach and concoctive faculty separate suchfoods 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 twopoisonous qualities that are of a bitter and astringent nature.

  How the same Gentleman scalds his Hogs.--Forthese 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 twoor 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, andcause the water to have the greater effect in making it come regularly and easilyoff, better than the common way of doing it only with hot water. In this work thebutcher uses an iron instrument, somewhat like a horse's curry-comb, that has twoedges, but no teeth. This scrapes off the loosen'd hair, and then a knife followswhich cleans the skin and compleats the work; and when one side of the hog is thusdone, they lay a little straw at bottom, and turn the lower side uppermost, to bescraped and cleaned as the other was. This same way is made use of in some partsof the north for both baconers and porkers, with good reason, for it makes the baconlook white, and take salt better than if singed. Thus prepared, it will not damagesoup or broth, as they are dried free of any burnt tang, and therefore fitter tobe boiled with fowls, veal, beans, &c. This is much the better way thanto scald the hair off (as we do in Hertfordshire) by putting the dead hoginto a tub or cistern of scalding water, which is a sort of parboiling, and undoubtedlyrenders any bacon or pork so served, subject to keep the less time sound; for thehulls or dust of the oatmeal serves, in this case, instead of resin.

  Fatting Hogs for Bacon or Pork in London.--ALondon distiller told me, that although he did not keep any hogs, yet he knew onethat kept eight hundred by him at once, at some time of the year, for fattening themto 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 sweeterpork 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 itretain its fat in boiling like that. And no wonder it is so, if it is true, as Ihave been informed, that some feeders of hogs with distillers hot wash and grainshave killed their hogs and made them into bacon in a fortnight's time, by first layingthe 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 afortnight such bacon is compleatly made and sold. And although salt-petre makes partof their brine, and some of it is mixt with common salt afterwards, to salt downtheir 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 peaseor beans, &c.

  The Care and Art made use of by a Country Housewifein curing her Flitches of Bacon.--As soon as her hog was cut out, she strewedsome salt over the fleshy sides of the flitches over night, to extract and drainout 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 somesalt, 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 theflitches, which weighed near thirty stone; this done, she laid one flitch upon theother, the skinny side on the fleshy side, and the tail of the upper one to the head-partof 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; thisshe did twice in two weeks more, and when the flitches had thus lain three weeksin all, she hung them up to dry near her wide chimney, by a wood fire that burntleisurely.

  N. B. Next to the bone in a flitch of baconis 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 pickledPork.--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 shorterthan if it was pickled for pork, because both the salting and drying causes it. Besideswhich, the belly-piece of a fatted bacon hog is almost all fat, and is the toughestpart 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 pickledwith the rest of the carcase. And although it be an old sow that is to be made baconof, she will, by being baconed, eat very tender, as having got new young flesh infatting. 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 betterbacon. And it proved so, for I heard the woman say, that nothing eat tenderer orsweeter.--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; forif she is, her flesh, whether pickled as pork, or dry'd for bacon, will assuredlyeat rank and very unsavoury; which evil to prevent, we either have such a sow spayedbefore fatting, or boar her, and kill her fatted about the end of eight weeks, whichis about the expiration of half her time: Or if she is fatted without boaring, wekill her at ten days end, after her brimming is over, because there is an intervalof 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 Ihave practised all of them, and have therefore further to say, That as spaying ofa 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 bythe mismanagement of such a sow afterwards.--These material articles are certainlyso necessary to be known and observed, that if I had not wrote them, my book musthave been so much the more imperfect.

  A black Hog of the foreign Breed was killed withso thick a Skin, that it was thought it would be worth more to sell to the Saddlerthan to eat as Rind to Bacon.--A Farmer, that kept the wild sort of breed ofhogs, fatted one that weighed 35 stone, for bacon, which had so thick a skin, aswas thought by his neighbours would have sold for more money than to eat it, as rindto bacon, because such a thick skin would have tann'd into a good substance, veryfit 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 bettersold to the saddler, and the flesh pickled for pork.

  How a Quaker living at Eaton in Bedfordshireused to prepare his Bacon for drying and keeping.--It was the practice ofthis man, for his own family's use, to wash his flitches of bacon very clean, justbefore 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 didhis bacon, after it had lain a month under it, for that in this time the flesh hadhad all the virtue it could have of the salt; and said, that by so doing he couldeat his bacon with less waste of salt than others did, and much cleaner.

  How a Country Bacon-monger left off smoaking hisBacon, to dry it without Smoak.--This was done in Buckinghamshire, wherea publican bacon-monger, every year, is said to kill 100 hogs for making bacon ofthem. It was this person that made an attempt, in imitation of the Londonbacon-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, thathe was soon out of love with his new way of hastily drying bacon altogether in asmoak-room, and did afterwards without smoaking them at all; for as soon as the flitcheshad lain their due time in salt, he laid them upon a rack near the cieling, in thekitchen, within the reach of some heat from the fire: Where after they had graduallydried, he took them away, and laid others in their room; and thus he proceeded tocure all his bacon, giving it a most white colour, free of all smoak, and likewisefree of all rust, that might be occasioned from too much heat of the fire. For thisis a true maxim in the drying of bacon, that so far as the heat of the fire entersthe flitch, so far the rust will breed in it. Not but that there are two extreamsin drying bacon. Some hang up their flitches in the side of a chimney, to be driedand cured by the sooty smoak, for two or three weeks, so that when they are takendown, they appear black. This way, indeed, may help to keep the bacon from taintinga long time; but its unwholesome nature and unpleasant taste want no rehearsing.So likewise is the under-drying of bacon another extream, for then the fat will belike tallow, and taint in a little time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Why a Vale Housewife refuses to make use of anySalt-petre in the curing of her Pork or Bacon.--This housewife is wife to a manthat lives on his own estate at Eaton in Bedfordshire, who is seldomwithout half a dozen hogs in his yard, which he feeds for his own family's use; nowit is a constant notion of this woman, that salt-petre does more harm than good topork or bacon, she therefore refuses it, as believing it to be of so penetratinga nature, that it eats out the gravey and goodness of the meat, makes it unpleasantlydry, and gives it an unsavoury twang. For, as she says, if bacon is rightly saltedand dry'd, there is no danger of its tainting; and as to the redness of the colour,and hardness of the flesh, which she allows salt-petre may be the cause of, she thinkscommon salt may fully supply both these qualities, if enough of it is made use of,and the bacon passes through a leisure drying, and is rightly preserved afterwards.

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

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

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

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

  The Power of Brine and the frugal Management ofit, in the Cure and Preservation of Bacon, Hams, Tongues, &c.--In many ofthe London cellars, where they keep great numbers of flitches of bacon inheaps under salt for two or three months together, ready for drying and selling themat a beneficial time, they have a reservoir to catch and retain the brine that descendsinto it by a dissolution of the salt; which brine they boil and scum till it is perfectlyclear, and make it serve (with more salt) for a pickle to preserve other bacon, pork,or beef in; and if they want to make it very strong, they add sugar and common salt,or salt-petre, &c. to their liking. Thus flitches of bacon, hams, spare-ribs,tongues, clods of beef, legs of pork, or other pieces of a hog or bullock, may bepickled, by lying in the pickle of either of the foregoing receits; hams four orfive weeks, the clods of beef three weeks or a month, tongues twelve or fourteendays, and thinner meat accordingly: These brines, if made to the proof of swimmingan egg, will last good three months, and if they are found to decay, or are bloody-foul,it is only boiling them up again with some addition of common salt, which when scummed,and discharged of all flesh, will be clear and new for another trial. And it is fromsuch pickle, that hams, tongues, or other pieces of meat may be taken to dry in achimney or stove, or a smoak closet or room, over or near the burning of charcoal,sawdust, or old spokes of wheels, or other dead wood that has lost its sap. An innkeeperof Leighton in Bedfordshire, that had somewhat a greater trade thanhis neighbours, and kept plow'd ground in his hands besides, always kept his beefand pork in one large powdering tub in brine; and for preserving his brine and meatsweet and untainted, his maid-servant all the summer long was obliged to boil upher pickle once every fortnight or three weeks, in order to scum and purify it, tillit was as clear as rock-water; when cold, she return'd it into the tub, and havingnew salted her old, or salted her new fresh meat, it was laid in this clarify'd pickle.And thus he went on all the year, shifting his brine often in summer, and seldomin winter, but never intirely discharged his powdering tub of brine, except oncea year, and then it was for using it to keep his wheat-seed in at sowing-time. Buthis tongues he kept in a pickling pot by themselves, and shifted the brine now andthen that they laid in, by boiling and scumming it, and new salting them. But Mr.Houghton is more particular in his fourth volume (page 257.) of Brine ;for there he says, that in the strongest unboiled brine he could make, he pottedtwo porkers in February, and in July he thought it exceeded all thebacon he ever eat with beans.--That in such brine, that he kept two years withoutboiling, he sunk a brisket of beef for eight days, in February, and then tookit out, dried it in a temperate open place for six weeks, and it eat very well withboiled sallad.--That about the same time he sunk another piece of beef for twentydays, and afterwards hung it up in an open place for the whole summer, and at Michaelmasit was very good.--That he sunk a leg of mutton in brine all night, then hung itup in a string in defiance of the season and flies for ten days, and after dressingit, found it excellent; and so fresh as to eat salt with it.--The use of making sucha strong unboiled brine that will answer this end, I will shew by an example of preservinga leg of pork in it, so that it may be made to eat like true Westphalia ham.It is certainly true, that the leg of the wild foreign black breed of hogs is thebest to make a ham of, because their flesh is naturally shorter and sweeter thanthe English breed. After the leg has been cut out ham-fashion, let it be aday or two before it is meddled with, then beat only the fleshy side of it with arolling-pin, rub the leg all over with one ounce of powder'd salt-petre, and letit lie thus eight and forty hours; next mix two handfuls of common salt, with oneounce of sal prunella finely beaten, one handful of bay-salt, and one pound of coarsesugar. These, as I said before, must be warmed in a pan till they are near melting,and then when they are so warm, must be soundly rubbed with more common salt allover the ham, in an earthen glazed pot; when the ingredients are all dissolved intoa brine, turn the leg or ham twice a day with a pocket fork for three weeks together,then take and dry it as bacon is dried.--This is a very strong brine, and may serveas an excellent pickle for bacon, pork, beef, &c. &c.--Theuse of coarse sugar in salting or pickling of bacon, pork, beef, mutton, &c.may perhaps be wonder'd at, particularly if mixed in a pye with salt and pepper,&c. but it has been often found to add a tender shortness to the meat,and give it a delicate relish besides. Thus when sugar is used in the cure of baconor pickled pork, it is said to be as effectual in the curing of them as salt. Andit is well known, that salt causes all meat it is applied to for keeping, to be hardand dry; whereas sugar makes the flesh eat tender, short, and sweet. Thus as sugarhas a great spirit in it, it is thought that it will, with half the quantity of commonsalt that is usually made use of, preserve flesh a year together sound and good.--Butto be further particular in making a right pickle or brine for keeping bacon, orhams, or tongues, or other meat in--Boil in five gallons of water (whereof the springsort is best) a quarter of a pound of salt-petre, one pound of petre-salt, four poundsof bay-salt, two ounces of sal prunella, and eight pounds of brown sugar; boil allfifteen minutes, scum it well, and when cold put in your meat, to keep five or sixweeks, more or less.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  What Mr. Bradley says of feeding, making,and soucing of Brawn, in his Country Housewife, page 186.--It isto be observed, that what is used for brawn, is the flitches only, without the legs,and they must have the bones taken out, and then sprinkled with salt, and laid ina tray or some other thing to drain off the blood; when this is done, salt it a little,and roll it up as hard as possible, so that the length of the collar of brawn beas much as one side of the boar will bear, and to be (when it is rolled up) aboutnine or ten inches diameter. When you have rolled up your collar as close as youcan, tie it with linen tape as tight as possible, and then prepare a cauldron witha large quantity of water to boil it. In this boil your brawn till it is tender enoughfor a straw to pass into it, and then let it cool, and when it is quite cold, putit in the following pickle: Put to every gallon of water a handful or two of salt,and as much wheat bran, boil them well together, then strain the liquor as clearas you can from the bran, and let it stand till it is quite cold, at which time putyour brawn into it; but this pickle must be renewed every three weeks. Some put halfsmall-beer and half water, but then the small-beer should be brewed with pale malt;but I think (says he) the first pickle is the best. Note, the same boar'shead, being well cleaned, may be boiled and pickled like the brawn, and is much esteemed.--Inanother place, page 110, he says, A boar ought to be put up at Midsummer tobe fed for brawn against Christmas, when it sells best, even for one shillingper pound; and it should be an old boar, because the older he is, the more hornywill the brawn be. We must provide for this use a frank, as the farmers call it,which must be built very strong to keep the boar in, and somewhat longer than theboar, but in such a manner, that the boar must not have room to turn round. The backof this frank must have a sliding board to open and shut at pleasure, for the conveniencyof taking away the dung, which should be done every day; when all this is very secure,and made as directed, put up your boar, and take care that he is so placed, as neverto see or even hear any hogs; for if he does, he will pine away, and lose more goodflesh in one day, than he gets in a fortnight, he must then be fed with as many peaseas he will eat, and as much skim milk as is necessary for him. This method must beused with him, till he declines his meat or will eat very little of it, and thenthe pease must be left off, and he must be fed with paste made of barley-meal, madeinto balls as big as large hens eggs, and still the skim milk continued, till youfind him decline that likewise, at which time he will be fit to kill for brawn. Thesedirections to make brawn, by Mr. Bradley and Rabisha, are all prettywell to the purpose; but to make brawn by the following printed receit, in a Housewife'sBook, is very insipid indeed; it begins thus--To make brawn--When it is cutup, says the author, and boned, let it lie two days and nights in water, shiftingit each day into fresh water; when you come to roll it up, dip it in warm water,and salt it well; then roll it up, and boil the least roll six hours, and the biggestnine.--Another printed one, more insipid than the last, says thus, To keep brawn,Take some bran, put it in a kettle of water over the fire, and two or three handfulsof salt; boil this up, strain it thro' a sieve, and when it is cold, you must putyour brawn in it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Sucking Pigs killed by giving the Sow Hops amongstGrains.--This was true matter of fact, as it happened to a neighbour of mine,who ignorant of the ill effects of hops, gave the grains and hops together to hissuckling sow, as they came out of a copper, from being boiled to make a small beerwhich we call Kettle-gallop; that is to say, we put the ground malt and hopsinto water and boil them together, then strain out the liquor, and work it with yeastfor small beer; the grains of which, with the hops, were given to the sow, and causedthe death of five pigs out of ten, and two of the rest pined to that degree thatthey were near dying. Now I cannot account for this damage otherwise, than that Ithink the hops being of a toughish nature, the sow could not digest them withoutmuch difficulty, or that their acid quality turned and curdled her milk so as tospoil the pigs. But to avoid this evil, I have in my treatise on brewing malt liquors,(intituled The London and Country Brewer, sold by Mr. Astley,bookseller, at the Rose in Pater-noster-row, London) shewed a way howto make kettle-gallop small beer, and yet to feed a sow safely on the grains, freeof the damage of all hops.

  A Sow, just ready to pig, was poisoned by drinkingyeasty Wash.--This was my own case. On the 26th of August 1746, I hada sow just ready to pig, when my silly maid-servant gave her a pail-full of wash,made up with the yeasty grounds of barrels, in the evening; and next morning shewas found dead, prodigiously swelled, with much froth, that she had discharged ather mouth.--Now why the yeasty grounds of barrels poisoned the sow, in my humbleopinion was, because yeast is of an acid nature; and as the grounds lay some timein the barrel after the beer was drawn out of it, it acquired such an increase ofits acidity, as to gripe, poison, and swell the sow; for whether yeast is stale ornew, it has a poisonous swelling quality in it, witness the experiment I published(in my said brewing treatise) of a dog purposely kept hungry for eating ayeasted toast, which in a very little time swelled and killed him. And why it hasnot the same effect on the human body by bread is, because there is but little usedin making it, and that being mixed with much water and flower, the fire of the ovenrenders it entirely harmless: Therefore let this be a warning to all that read it,never to suffer any yeasty grounds of barrels to be mixed with any meat that is givento hogs, lest it kill them as it did my sow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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