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TO SELECT HAMS

The best hams, whether corned or cured and smoked, are those from eight to fifteen pounds in weight, having a thin skin, solid fat, and a small, short, tapering leg or shank. In selecting them, run a knife along the bone on the fleshy side; if it comes out clean the ham is good, but if the knife is smeared it is spoiled. Hams may be steamed, being careful to keep the water under the steamer boiling, and allow twenty minutes to the pound. When done, brown slightly in the oven.

PORK. Great care must be taken in selecting pork. If ill-fed or diseased, no meat is more injurious to the health. The lean must be fine-grained, and both fat and lean very white. The rind should be smooth and cool to the touch. If clammy, be sure the pork is stale, and reject it. If the fat is full of small kernels, it is an indication of disease. In good bacon the rind is thin, the fat firm, and the lean tender. Rusty bacon has yellow streaks in it. Fresh pork should seldom be eaten, and never except in the fall and winter. LAMB is good at a year old, and more digestible than most immature meats. "Spring Lamb" is prized because unseasonable. It is much inferior to the best mutton. The meat should be light red and fat. If not too warm weather, it ought to be kept a day or two before cooking, but it does not keep well. It is stringy and indigestible if cooked too soona fter killing. The fore-quarter of lamb, if not fresh, the large vein in the neck, which should be blue, will be greenish in color. If the hind-quarter is stale, the kidney-fat will have a slight smell.