Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. Catharine Esther Beecher

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      In selecting Pork, if young, the lean can easily be broken when pinched, and the skin can be indented by nipping with the fingers. The fat also will be white and soft. Thin rind is best.

      In selecting Hams, run a knife along the bone, and if it comes out clean, the ham is good; but if it comes out smeared, it is spoiled. Good bacon has white fat, and the lean adheres closely to the bone. If the bacon has yellow streaks, it is rusty, and not fit to use.

      In selecting Poultry, choose those that are full grown, but not old. When young and fresh-killed, the skin is thin and tender, the joints not very stiff, and the eyes full and bright. The breast-bone shows the age, as it easily yields to pressure if young, and is tough when old. If young, you can with a pin easily tear the skin. A goose, when old, has red and hairy legs; but when young, they are yellow, and have few hairs. The pin-feathers are the roots of feathers, which break off and remain in the skin, and always indicate a young bird. When very neatly dressed, they are pulled out.

      Poultry and birds ought to be killed by having the head cut off, and then hung up by the legs to bleed freely. This makes the flesh white and more healthful.

      In selecting Fish, take those that are firm and thick, having stiff fins and bright scales, the gills bright red, and the eyes full and prominent. When fish are long out of water, they grow soft, the fins bend easily, the scales are dim, the gills grow dark, and the eyes sink and shrink away. Be sure and have them dressed immediately; sprinkle them with salt, and use them, if possible, the same day. In warm weather, put them in ice, or corning, for the next day.

      Shell-fish can be decided upon only by the smell. Lobsters are not good unless alive, or else boiled before offered for sale. They are black when alive, and red when boiled. When to be boiled, they are to be put alive into boiling water, which is the quickest and least cruel way to end their life.

      THE CARE OF MEATS.

      In hot weather, if there is no refrigerator, then wipe meat dry, sprinkle on a little salt and pepper, and hang in the cellar. Or, still better, wrap it, thus prepared, in a dry cloth, and cover it with charcoal or with wood-ashes. Mutton, wrapped in a cloth wet with vinegar, and laid on the ground of a dry cellar, keeps well and improves in tenderness.

      Hang meat a day or two after it is killed before corning it.

      In winter, meat is kept finely if well packed in snow, without salting; but some say it lessens the sweetness.

      Frozen meat must be thawed in cold water, and not cooked till entirely thawed.

      Beef and mutton are improved by keeping as long as they remain sweet. If meat begins to taint, wash it, and rub it with powdered charcoal, which often removes the taint. Sometimes rubbing with salt will cure it. Soda water is good also.

      Take all the kernels out that you will find in the round and thick end of the flank of beef, and in the fat, and fill the holes with salt. This will preserve it longer.

      Salt your meat, in summer, as soon as you receive it.

      A pound and a half of salt rubbed into twenty-five pounds of beef, will corn it so as to last several days in ordinary warm weather; or put it in strong brine.

      In most books of recipes there are several different ones for corning, for curing pork hams, and for other uses, while an inexperienced person is at a loss to know which is best. The recipes here given are decided to be the best, after an examination of quite a variety, by the writer, who has resided where they were used; and she knows that the very best results are secured by these directions. These also are pronounced the best by business men of large experience.

      To Salt down Beef to keep the Year round.—One hundred pounds of beef; four quarts of rock-salt, pounded fine; four ounces of saltpetre, pounded fine; four pounds of brown sugar. Mix well. Put a layer of meat on the bottom of the barrel, with a thin layer of this mixture under it. Pack the meat in layers, and between each put equal proportions of this mixture, allowing a little more to the top layers. Then pour in brine till the barrel is full.

      To cleanse Calf’s Head and Feet.—Wash clean, and sprinkle pounded resin over the hair; dip in boiling water and take out immediately, and then scrape them clean; then soak them in water for four days, changing the water every day.

      To prepare Rennet.—Take the stomach of a new-killed calf, and do not wash it, as it weakens the gastric juice. Hang it in a cool and dry place five days or so; then turn the inside out, and slip off the curds with the hand. Then fill it with salt, with a little saltpetre mixed in, and lay it in a stone pot, pouring on a tea-spoonful of vinegar, and sprinkling on a handful of salt. Cover it closely, and keep for use. After six weeks, take a piece four inches square and put it in a bottle with five gills of cold water and two gills of rose brandy; stop it close, and shake it when you use it. A table-spoonful is enough for a quart of milk.

      To Salt down Fish.—Scale, cut off the heads, open down the back, and remove most of the spine, to have them keep better. Lay them in salt water two hours, to extract blood. Sprinkle with fine salt, and let them lie over night. Then mix one peck of coarse and fine salt, one ounce of saltpetre, (or half an ounce of saltpetre and half an ounce of saleratus,) and one pound of sugar. Then pack in a firkin. Begin with a layer of salt, then a layer of fish, skin downward. A peck of salt will answer for twenty-five shad, and other fish in proportion.

      As in most country families, when meat is salted for the year’s use, pork is the meat most generally and most largely relied upon, considerable space is devoted to its proper preparation. Special attention is given to various modes of curing and preserving it.

      To try out Lard.—Take what is called the leaves, and take off all the skin, cut it into pieces an inch square, put it into a clean pot over a slow fire, and try it till the scraps look a reddish-brown; take great care not to let it burn, which would spoil the whole. Then strain it through a strong cloth, into a stone pot, and set it away for use.

      Take the fat to which the smaller intestines are attached, (not the large ones,) and the flabby pieces of pork not fit for salting, try these in the same way, and set the fat thus obtained where it will freeze, and by spring the strong taste will be gone, and then it can be used for frying. A tea-cup of water prevents burning while trying.

      Corn-fed pork is best. Pork made by still-house slops is almost poisonous, and hogs that live on offal never furnish healthful food. If hogs are properly fed, the pork is not unhealthful.

      Pork with kernels in it is measly, and is unwholesome.

      A thick skin shows that the pork is old, and that it requires more time to boil. If bought pork is very salt, soak it some hours. Do not let pork freeze, if you intend to salt it.

      The gentleman who uses the following recipe for curing pork hams, says it has these advantages over all others he has tried or heard of, namely, the hams thus cured are sweeter than by any other method; they are more solid and tender, and are cured in less than half the time. Moreover, they do not attract flies so much as other methods:

      Recipe for Molasses-cured Hams.—Moisten every part of the ham with molasses, and then for every hundred pounds use one quart of fine salt, and four ounces of saltpetre, rubbing them in very thoroughly at every point. Put the hams thus prepared in a tight cask for four days. Then rub again with molasses and one quart of salt, and return the hams to the cask for four days. Repeat this the third and the fourth time, СКАЧАТЬ