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PORK, PICKLED (American method)
Dissolve an ounce of saltpetre and half an ounce of carbonate of potash in a small quantity of boiling water. Put this into a large saucepan containing three gallons of water, and add two and a half pound of common salt, two pounds of bay salt, and one pound of moist sugar. Boil the liquid, and skim well until it is quite clear, then pour it into the pickling-pan, and when it is cold it is ready for use. Pork which is to be boiled should be put into this pickle, and kept under the brine, by means of a board and a weight laid upon it, until it is wanted. The time required for pickling will of course depend upon the size of the meat and the taste of those who are to eat it. Usually it will be found that two days is sufficient for the streaky parts, four days for the hand and spring, and five or six days for a moderate-sized leg. The pickle may be used again and again if boiled occasionally.
This is a curing brine, not a dish, and it belongs to a period before anyone measured nitrate uptake or brine temperature. The vocabulary is worth decoding, but the method is not one to follow.
- Why this one failsCuring safety depends on knowing how much nitrate ends up in the meat, and at what temperature the meat sits while it takes up salt. Neither is controlled here: an ounce of saltpetre is dispersed through three gallons of brine, uptake varies with the cut and the number of days, and the pickling-pan is left at whatever temperature the larder happens to be. Use a current, tested curing recipe with weighed cure and a stated refrigeration temperature.
- SaltpetrePotassium nitrate. Modern curing uses precisely weighed nitrite or nitrate blends (pink curing salts) at legally capped levels, dyed pink specifically so they cannot be mistaken for table salt. Loose saltpetre bought by the ounce and stirred into a bucket is exactly the practice those limits replaced.
- The reused brine"The pickle may be used again and again if boiled occasionally" is the most dangerous line on the page. A brine that has held raw pork accumulates protein, blood and bacteria; occasional boiling does nothing about the days between boilings, and repeated use steadily changes the salt and nitrate concentration in ways nobody is measuring.
- Carbonate of potashPotassium carbonate, an alkali sold for baking and laundry work in the nineteenth century. The recipe does not say why it is here; alkali in a brine was generally supposed to check souring, and may affect water retention. It has no role in modern curing.
- Bay saltCoarse sea salt evaporated in shallow bays or pans, as distinct from fine refined "common" salt. The recipe calls for both, and does not say why. Neither is interchangeable by volume with modern table salt, which is finer and denser per spoonful.
- Moist sugarUnrefined or partly refined brown sugar, damp with residual molasses. The nearest modern equivalent is a soft light brown sugar.
- Hand and springAn English butchery term for the pig's foreleg together with the adjoining lower part of the side. The roughly corresponding American cuts are the picnic shoulder and the hock.
- Three gallonsIf imperial gallons are meant, roughly 3.6 US gallons or 13.6 litres of brine, made in a pan large enough to boil and skim it. Either way this is barrel-scale provisioning for a household without refrigeration, not a weekend project.
Salted pork was a mainstay of the nineteenth-century Atlantic food trade: barrelled and brined, it travelled on ships, fed armies, and stocked farm cellars through winters when fresh meat was unavailable. Why this brine is labelled an "American method" is not explained in the text itself. Pickled pork was a raw material, boiled and served with pease pudding or greens, or cut into the streaky pieces that started a stew. The instruction to weight the meat under a board is the one genuinely timeless part; meat that floats above the brine spoils, whatever the cure.