How To Boil A Ham

Put the ham into the copper or pot, and en-crease the fire very (lowly, so that it may continue there three or four hour, before it boils, and take off the scum as often as it rises. A small ham may be kept in an hour and a half after the pot begins to boil; but if a large one, it will take two hours.

How To Choose Westphalia Hams

There is a bone which flicks out of the broad end of the ham, between which and the flesh if you run a knife, and it comes out tolerable clean, with an agreeable flavour, the ham is good; but if the knife comes out smeared, and dull, the ham is either rufty or tainted.

How To Choose English Hams, Gammons, And Bacon

Hams and gammons may be tried in the same manner as the former; or an iron scewer may be thrust into the middle of them; and if it smells well and sweet when taken out the meat is good. As for bacon, if the fat is white, and feels oily, without crumbling or breaking; and if the flesh flicks well to the bone, keeping of a good colour, it is good. But when the lean has streaks of yellow, it is growing rusty.

How To Make Bacon Hams

Take a pound of salt, a pound of coarse su-gar, and an ounce of salt-petre; mix them all together and rub them on your ham. It must lie a month in this pickle, and be turned and basted every day. Then hang it in a chimney, where there is nothing made but wood fires, where no damp or wet can come near it. It must not hang against a wall. Some after this hang it in a damp place till it is mouldy, that it may eat fine and short.

How To Make Bacon

Take the side of a hog fed for this purpose, and lay it on a long board or dresser. Then take off all the inside fat, and let the blood drain away. After this, rub it with good salt on both sides, and let it lie in this manner for a week. Then take a quarter of a peck of common salt, a pint of bay-falt, two pints of coarse sugar, a quarter of a pound of salt-petre beaten fine, and mix them together. Lay your flitch in some-thing that will hold the pickle, and rub it well with the above mixture. Lay the skinny side downwards, and baste it with the pickle every day for a fortnight. Then hang it in wood smoak, as you did the ham to dry; and afterwards in a cool place, where no damp or wet can come near it.

How To Roast A Ham, Or Gammon Of Bacon

Take off the skin or rind off the ham or gammon, and lay it in water lukewarm for two or three hours. Then put it in a pan, and pour a quart of canary or sack over it, and let it sleep for twelve hours, or thereabout. This done, put it on a spit, and cover the fat side with sheets of paper. Pour the canary in which the ham was soaked, into the dripping-pan, with which it must be basted all the time it is roasting. When it is roasted enough take off the paper, and drudge it well with grated bread and parsley, cut very fine. Let the fire be made to burn brisk and fiercely, that the ham may be made of a fine brown. If it is to be eaten hot, garnish it with raspings of bread; if cold, serve it on a clean napkin, and garnish it with parsley.