How To Choose Pork

When pork is young the rind will be thin, and you may make a dent in it with your nails. Likewise the fat will be soft and pulpy, and in a manner like lard. When pork is old the rind will be thick, nor can you nip it with your nails. Likwise the lean will feel tough, the fat flabby, spongy and rough to the touch. The flesh of a boar or hog gelded at full growth, will be red-dish, hard, tough, and of a rank smell; the fat will be skinny and hard; the skin very thick and tough, tough, falling again immediately when pinch'd with the fingers. To know whether it is dale or not, put a ringer under a bone that flicks out, between it and the flesh, and then smell it; for the strong smell will soon discover its being stale. Besides, the rind will be sweaty and clammy. But if it be smooth and dry it is fresh killed. Meafly pork has kernels in the fat like large shot. It is very unwholesome.

How To Roast Pork

There is no meat requires more roasting than pork; for if it be under done it disagrees with the stomach. It is common to cut the skin of the loin and leg cross-ways, to make it eat more crisp and brittle; and it is then called by some the crackling crust. Though some think the leg will eat better if it is not cut. The best way to roast a leg of pork is to parboil it first, and then to take the skin off and roast it. It mult be basted with butter. Take a little fage and Hired it very fine, a little pepper and salt, a little grated nutmeg, and some grated bread; throw a little at a time of this over it all the while it is roasting. The crumbs that drop from it into the pan, should be mix'd with some made gravy, and put into the dish that the pork is to be laid in. A spring, or hand of pork, when very young, should be roasted like a pig, and then it is good eating; otherwise it is best boiled. The spare rib should be basted with a bit of butter, a little fage shredded small, and a dust of flour. Pork griskins are likewise best when roast ed, and basted with butter, crumbs of bread, and a little pepper and salt. Apple sauce is used with spare ribs. Nothing is requir'd for griskins but mustard. A joint of eight pounds will take upwards of two hours, unless it be thin, and then two hours will do it. Observe the same proportion in the reft.

How To Roast A Loin Of Pork With Onions

Take a fore-loin of pork, and roast it in the common way : Then take a quarter of a peck of onions, and let them be peeled, sliced, and put into the dripping-pan, that the fat may drop on them while the pork is roasting. When the pork is near done, take the onions up and put them into a saucepan; let them simmer over the fire a quarter of an hour, shaking them well; then pour out as much of the fat as you can, and shake in a little flour, adding a spoonful of vinegar and half a spoonful of mustard; stir them together and set the saucepan over the fire for four or five minutes. Lay the pork in a dish and put the onions in basons.