The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1884-03-11

darkest anu most IGIlS Jung VI th'
war.
Half an Hour in q Smoke House
New York sun.
In the second of the FIVE stories of 4
Beach street house man picked hams
out of crate and threw them into 8
cask of water, while a clerk and an
other young man watched him.
When L was boy. the clerk said,
lived in the wilds of Ohio in the val
ley Of The Maumee river. That is a
land which produces hogs and hominy
spontaneously, As it raises elm ahd
burr oak and soft maple aud sycamore
trees. The hogs, the burr oak, the
corn. and the sycamore formed nat
ural sequence in my dav.
The young man smiled, but with
out appearing To understand. The
clerk continued The farmers there
turned their hugs cut To run loose in
the WOO Is during the warm weather.
The burr oak acOrns along in the fall
fatten up the shoats nicely. When in
good flesh they are rounded up and
penned for six weeks and f-d On corn.
That improves the flavor of the pork.
Then they are ready for killing.
Where did the sycamore come in ?
The sycamore grows in the form of
hollow shell In tnat country. | have
seen them five feet in diameter on the
inside, with a trunk forty feet hi gb.
The farmer cuts of a tweuty-foOt sec
ton of a large sycamore, rolls the big
end on mud boat-mud beat? slei
with runners six feet long and six
inches wide. Then he yokes the
cattle to the sled and draws It home.
Stood on end and rooted with clap-
boards split from a red oak log, the
.ycamore smoke house is landmark
as frequent as stake-and-rider fences.
Tie farmer harfgs up a dozen hams
and shoulders properly sailed, builds
up fire of corn cobs morning and
evening under them for three OF four
or five days, and then lets them hang
there till wanted.
How much have the wholesale pork
men improved the old process!
Not cents worth. In the East
ern states the farmers used frame or
brick buildings six or eight feet square
and nine or ten feet high in place of
the hollow log The smoke house of
the wholesale smoker is an enlarged
edition of the farmers brick smoke
house.
How do you prepare hams for
smOSing?
TO begin at the beginning, the
live hogs are delivered by Western
drovers To the slaughter-house men.
who kill and dress the animals,
selling the whole carcasses to the
cutters. The cutters are men who
cut up the whole hogs. selling parts
e. the retail meat markets, making
lard Of part, sailing part, and selling
many hams. shoulders, and bellies for
bacon to the smokers. We al! run
to specialties. The hams come to us
all trimmed and nice and fresh. We
dump them into a cask of pickle thai
Is made of water. salt, sugar, and
saltpetre.
How much of each,
Well, that depends. For the city
trade a weaker solution is required
than when the meat is to 90 South.
A good average would be twenty
pounds of salt, three-fourths of a
pound of saltpetre, and five pound>
of white sugar 70 a fierce holding 300
pounds OF meat. The water fills the
tierce. The hams cure in this solu-
ton, say, sixty days for foreign trade, !
while the bacon should not be cured |
longer than thirty DAYS for The home |
trade. Bacon is thinner AID cures
through quicker. you see. AT the ed
IF thar time the meat is taken from !
the fierce, a tarred string is put in
each hiece, and then all are freshen- |
Ell for from two to fourteen hours III !
casks of fresh water. That MAJ |
there is dumping cure meat into the
fre~hening cask.
What Is that for?
Look. IF The salt was not soaked
from the outside Of the ham it would
fry out during the smoking ana stand
thick in crystals all over the surface
That would kill the sale When the
freshening is done there is an excre- |
ton on the ham that will dry into an
ofensive-looking slim if not removed
by bath of hot water and sal soda. |
Then we are ready for the smoke
houses. Here are FIVE. You can see
them for yourself.
The clerk pointed to a narrow slit
of a door in brick wall not far away.