367. There are many methods recommended for carrying this operation into effect. The following in our opinion are the best: - Before salting, particularly in the summer, all the kernels, pipes, and veins, should be taken out of the meat, or all your salting will be in vain. The meat will not keep. The salt should be rubbed thoroughly and equally into every part of the meat, and great care should be taken to fill the holes with salt, where the kernels have been taken out, and where the butcher's skewers have been stuck. It is also necessary, directly meat comes into the house for salting, to wipe away any slime or blood that may appear. In very hot weather meat will not hang a single day without being liable to fly-blows; if once tainted, it will not take the salt. In winter it is best to let it hang for two or three days, but take care that it does not get frost-bitten. The salt should be heated in very cold weather before it is applied to the meat.

368. It is a good plan to slightly sprinkle meat with salt a day or two before finally salting; this will draw out the blood. But the first brine should be thrown away, as it is apt to injure butcher's meat, and always has a tendency to make bacon rusty. The meat should be wiped thoroughly clean after the preparatory salting.

369. Different quantities of salt are recommended; a pound of salt is sufficient for a middling sized joint; for a round of beef of twenty-five pounds, a pound and a half should be rubbed in all at once, though others rub in a little at a time for two or three days; but at any rate it requires to be turned and rubbed every day with the brine. The less salt used the better, providing you use enough to preserve the meat. Too much salt extracts the juices of the meat and makes it tough. Coarse sugar or treacle and bay salt are used by some in the following proportions: Two ounces of bay salt, two ounces of sugar, add three-quarters of a pound of common salt. A little saltpetre rubbed in will make the meat red, but is apt to harden it.

370. Meat should not be kept in salt any longer than is necessary to thoroughly cure it. In the course of four or five days it will be ready for dressing; but if intended to be eaten cold, two or three days more will make it keep longer and improve its flavour. Some people let meat lie in salt for a fortnight, and perhaps this is necessary for large hams and thick pieces of beef, but much depends upon the quantity of brine. If this be sufficient to cover the one-half of the meat, every time it is turned, less time will be required.

371. Hasty salting is sometimes necessary. When this is the case, rub half the quantity of salt to be used into the meat, which put in a warm place till the time of dressing. Before putting it into the pot, flour a coarse cloth and pack the meat in it; put it into the water when boiling. After it has boiled half of the usual time, that is, when it is half done, take it up, rub in the remainder of the salt and again pack it in a floured cloth: it should boil a little longer than when salted in the usual manner. Some persons simply boil it in very salt water, but the above plan is the best.

372. Flavoured salt meal may be made by pounding some sweet herbs, onions, etc, with salt, and it may be rendered still more relishing by the addition of a little zest, or savoury spice.

373. Pickling meat is effected as follows: there are other plans, but we prefer the method given in the Encyclopedia Biitannica: - Six pounds of salt, one pound of sugar, and four ounces of saltpetre, boiled in four gallons of water, skimmed and allowed to cool, forms a very strong pickle, which will preserve any meat completely im mersed in it. To effect this complete immersion, which is essential, either a flat stone or heavy board must be laid on the meat. The same pickle may be used repeatedly, provided it be boiled up occasionally with additional salt to restore its strength, diminished by the combination of part of the salt with the meat, and by the detection of the pickle by the juices of the meat extracted. By boiling, the albumen (which would cause the pickle to spoil) is coagulated, and rises in the form of scum, which must be carefully removed. Albumen is so called because it resembles in appearance the white of an egg, and of whose nature it also partakes. It is a constituent in all meat. Pickled meat gains in weight; salted in the common way, that is, not immersed or covered with brine, it loses about one and a half in sixteen.

374. Jerked beef is made by cutting it into thin pieces, or slices, and dipping them into sea or salt water, and then drying them quickly in the sun. In the West Indies, where they can scarcely cure meat in the ordinary way on account of the excessive heat, they adopt the above method of preserving beef.

375. Curing bacon is effected by various methods: some use common salt only, which answers the purpose very well, but others consider a mixture of salt and sugar or molasses to be preferable. The proportions are, common salt, bay salt, and coarse sugar, or molasses, two pounds each, saltpetre six ounces. The quantity used must depend upon the size of the hog to be cured. The blood should be thoroughly drawn out of the meat by common salt before finally dressed for curing, and the dirty brine thrown away. Finely powder and dry the salt, and let it be well rubbed in; the heavier the hand employed, the sooner the bacon will be cured. The flitches must be always kept with the rind downwards. The top flitch must be put every day for a month at the bottom - thus changing them all round. Some use bay salt only, others rub in a little saltpetre, for the purpose of reddening the lean of the bacon (see Drying, No. 381.)