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PORK, SCRAMBLED (an American dish)
Soak a pound of salt pork to freshen it. Drain it, cut it into pieces about an inch square; fry these in hot fat, and move them about that they may be equally cooked. When they are almost done enough, stir in with them from six to twelve well-beaten eggs, and beat all quickly together. When the eggs are set, turn the mixture upon a hot dish, and send boiled, baked, or roasted potatoes to table with it. If the pork gives out a good deal of fat whilst it is being fried, pour this off before dishing the meat. Time, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, pork, 9d. to 10d. per pound. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A plain salt-pork-and-egg skillet dish, and the only real decisions are how long to soak the pork and how gently to treat the eggs.
- Soaking the porkModern salt pork is still heavily cured, so "freshen it" means a soak in several changes of cold water — an hour or two at minimum, overnight in the refrigerator for a very salty piece. Judge by tasting the soaking water, or fry a small scrap and taste that; if it is still fiercely salty, keep going. No extra salt goes into the eggs.
- Which cut to buySalt pork from the belly or fatback is the intended article. Thick-cut bacon works but brings smoke and sugar the original does not have; pancetta is closer in spirit.
- The hinge: egg heatFry the pork over medium-high until the cubes are browned and rendered, then drop the heat to low before the eggs go in. Eggs added to a screaming-hot pan of pork fat will be dry and granular in under a minute. "Beat all quickly together" means keep them moving in soft folds and pull the pan while they still look slightly underdone.
- Pour off the fatThe original says to pour it off "before dishing the meat", which reads as a step at the end; in practice it is easier to draw off the excess before the eggs go in, since eggs scrambled in a poolful of grease separate into a slick. A pound of salt pork can render a good deal of fat; leave about a tablespoon in the pan and save the rest.
- Six to twelve eggsThe recipe gives no reason for so wide a range, and the yield of four or five is stated regardless. Fewer eggs make it emphatically a pork dish; twelve make it a substantial scramble with pork through it.
- That quarter of an hourFifteen minutes is about right for the whole operation: rendering and browning the cubes takes ten to twelve minutes, the eggs two to three at the end.
- Yield and servingFour to five, as stated, with potatoes. Anything acidic on the side — pickles, a sharp relish, stewed tomatoes — cuts the fat usefully.
This is often described as "an American dish," and the label is earned: salt pork was the standard preserved meat of American farm and frontier kitchens through the nineteenth century, kept in barrels of brine and drawn on all year, while British households of the same period leaned more on bacon and ham. Combining it with a large number of eggs is characteristic of a household with its own hens and its own pig, using up both at once. Late-Victorian British cookery books collected such dishes with a certain curiosity — dictionary-style works like this one were expanding their range to include American, Anglo-Indian and continental entries. The recipe states a cost of ninepence to tenpence a pound.