Roast Pig
This is sometimes partly divided before serving. Cut off the head and divide it through the middle; then divide through the backbone. Place it on the platter back to back, with half the head on each end of the dish. If the pig be very young, it is in better style to serve it whole. Before cooking, truss the forelegs forward and the hind legs backward. Place the pig on the platter with the head at the left. Cut off the head, separating the neck-joint with the point of the knife, then cut through the flesh on either side. Take off the shoulders by cutting in a circle from under the foreleg round nearly to the backbone and down again. Bend it forward and cut through the joint. Cut off the hams in the same way. Then split the backbone the entire length and divide between each rib. Cut slices from the thickest part of the hams and the shoulders. The ribs are the choice portion, but those who like it at all consider any part of it a delicacy.
HAM.
If the ham is not to be served whole, the simplest and most economical way is to begin near the smaller end and cut in very thin slices, on each side of the bone. Divide the slices and arrange them neatly on the dish, one lapping over another, with the fat edge outside.
Where the whole ham is to appear on the table it should be trimmed neatly, and the end of the bone covered with a paper ruffle. The thickest part should be on the further side of the platter. Make an incision through the thickest part, a little way from the smaller end. Shave off in very thin slices, cutting toward the larger end and down to the bone at every slice. The knife should be very sharp to make a clean cut, and each slice should have a portion of the fat with the crisp crust. To serve it hot a second day, fill the cavity with a bread stuffing, cover it with buttered crumbs, and brown it in the oven. If it is to be served cold, brown the crumbs first and then sprinkle them over the stuffing. If this be done the edges will not dry and the symmetry of the ham is preserved. Carve as before, toward the larger end, and if more be needed, cut also from the other side of the bone. By filling the cavity again with stuffing, a ham may be served as a whole one the third time and look as inviting as when first served. Should there be two or three inches of the thickest end left for another serving, saw off the bone, lay the meat flesh side up, with the fat on the further side of the platter, and carve horizontally in thin slices.
TONGUE.
The centre of the tongue is the choicest portion. Cut across in slices as thin as a wafer. The tip of the tongue is more delicate when cut lengthwise in thin slices, though this is not the usual practice.
A suckling pig, a whole ham and a tongue: three joints that arrive at the table entire and have to be taken apart in front of the company. The ham section describes something no modern cook would attempt, and it is the most interesting thing on the page.
- The pigA suckling pig has to be ordered from a butcher and will not fit in many domestic ovens, so it is as much a question of equipment as of cooking. The page assumes it comes to table whole with the head on, forelegs trussed forward and hind legs back, and that the carver takes the head off first.
- Where the meat isThe shoulders come away by cutting a circle from under the foreleg nearly to the backbone, the hams the same way, and then the backbone is split and divided between every rib. The page calls the ribs the choice portion, which is the reverse of the modern preference for the loin and is worth testing before you believe the modern one.
- A whole bone-in hamAlmost nothing sold now resembles the joint being carved here. Most ham comes boneless, cooked and often sliced, so the skill the page teaches — beginning near the small end, shaving very thin slices on each side of the bone, cutting towards the thick end and down to the bone at every slice — has nowhere left to be used except on a whole gammon on the bone, which a butcher will still sell you if asked.
- The paper ruffleThe cut end of the bone was dressed with a frill of cut paper so that a joint being carved at the table still looked finished. It is the same instinct as the ruffles on a crown roast and it is there purely for the look of the thing.
- Thin as a waferBoth the ham and the tongue are to be cut extremely thin, and the page tells you the knife must be very sharp to make a clean cut. That is the one piece of advice here that transfers without any alteration, and it is the one most often ignored.
- TongueOx tongue is still sold, usually salted, and it wants long simmering and then peeling while it is hot before it can be sliced at all. The page skips every bit of that and starts at the carving, because the cooking was somebody else’s business.
The three-serving ham is the most revealing thing on the page and it has nothing to do with taste. A ham is carved, and then the hollow left in it is packed with stuffing, crumbed and browned so that the edges do not dry and the symmetry is preserved; then carved again, refilled, and sent up a third time looking, in the author’s words, as inviting as when it was first served. That is a household feeding a great many people from one expensive joint over several days and caring very much that nobody watch it diminish. The pig makes the same point from the other direction. It arrives whole, in better style if it is young, and the author notes that it is sometimes partly divided beforehand — a concession, and she is clear that it is the lesser option. The line between what the kitchen did and what the dining room watched being done was a matter of style, and this page is where she draws it.