The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-12-01

by Swift, Armour, Cudahy and orher
famous packers.
GOOD corned beef makes a good
dlsh aiso' and sometimes fills an ach-
ing void in ones gastronomy.
The Breeders Gazette. of which orr
esteemed friend, Mr.. w. R. Goodwin.
Is one OF the editors and owners. in a
recent issue said that the invariable
request for recipes for sugar-curing
mans comes this fall from ]. A. NJ.
Union City, Tenn. Our venerable. but
yet vigorous correspondent L. n.
Bonham, has so often submitted the
method used at his Glen Ellis Farm
q when its cured pork products were ia
nous articles of trade, that we do not
trouble him TO re-write it, but reprint
his last complete statement on this
subject:
The recipe given has been used in
our family for two generations. The
runts and scalawags, the stays and
WORKOUT old sows go to the packer,
sand yet with choice, thrifty young
pigs available on the farm it is no
scredit to us farmers that we call for
bacon with that flavor with which the
big packers tickle our palate. The
farmer who raises the pigs, good, bad
and Indifferent, that go over the
scales to the packing-house should be
able out of his selects to make bacon
and hams that are as much better
than the packers output as selected
pigs are better than the average of
the drove. Some raisers of cattle and
swine somehow think their part of
furnishing food for the family and
guests is done when they have the an
finals ready for the butcher. Another
class leave at home for the family
supply such misfits as packers discard
when making choice brands of bacon
and hams.
BE the skill of the killer and curer
ever so great they make their best
products out of the selected animals.
For best bacon they do not want the
biggest producer of lard, but lard is
such a ruling article in the cuisine of
many families that they butcher only
those with age and weight to yield
lard I'm abundance From such hogs
even the most skillful curers cannot
make the choicest cuts of highest
priced bacons. We hear therefore of
The two classes of hogs-the bacon
hog and the lard hog. But as the lat
q ter is the hog that brings the farmer
the best market for his corn, the mar
ket is often short of first class bacon
hogs. They come from the light type,
be they young of the lard hog or old
or of the bacon type.
IF the claims of the breeders OF
the bacon breeds are correct, it fol-
lows that if we are to have in our
farm smoke-houses the best bacon we
must raise hogs of the bacon type.
Fortunately, however, for the raisers
of the more growthy hogs very choice
bacon and hams can be made from
them If they are killed before they
get too heavy-say at five to six
months old, weighing after six weeks
feeding from $50 to 100 pounds. On
less the family believes that no bacon
is good that is less than an inch thick
they can find just as delicious and
nutty cuts from sides of young hogs
weighing from 200 to $50 pounds, but
In every case the quality of the bacon
depends on the feeding as well as on
tbs curing. The last summer 1t mas
been particularly hard to find a choice
eiece of thin bacon SIMPLY because
the price of hogs has justified longer
feeding. and four TO six months pigs
were not shipped.
out of droves of young things we
will find some of the fancy thin anu
streaked bacon we long for, although
very small percentage has come
from pigs of the so-called bacon
breeds. The lesson of all this TO the
farmer seeking bacon with the haVor
Abe packer turns out is, be careful TO
select for family use the kind OF pig
that can furnish desirable cuts Tor oa-
con. The next step is to kill and
cure as skillfully as the successful
packer. There are scores of recipes
by which toothsome bacon IS cured
There is not so much in the recipe as
the inexperienced imagine. The rlgn'
kind of a pig properly killed and han
died with scrupulous neatness, and
the meat we'll cooled out before gong
into a clean casK or jar, skin SIDE
down, and covered with brine maze
according TO this simple old recipe
may turn out bacon and hams 10 sun
even the most fastidious.
.srI.l. hn mild as Q0-