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Wild Boar Ham
Take a ham that has hung for ten days or more, singe off the bristles, wash the ham in lukewarm water, and saw off the bone two inches below the knuckle. Put it in a marinade made of equal parts of vinegar and water, to which has been added a tumblerful of light wine, a bunch of sage, and a little salt and cayenne. Let it remain for eight days; drain it, and wipe it dry. Cover with paper that has been soaked in oil, put it down before a clear fire, and baste with the marinade every quarter of an hour. When done enough, take off the paper, and remove the rind. Brush the ham over with liquid glaze, and put it in the oven for a short time, or, if preferred, instead of glazing it, cover with bread-raspings. Put a paper frill round the knuckle, place the ham on a dish, and send with it to table venison sauce, or sauce made of the marinade boiled with a little good gravy and strained, in a boat. If more convenient, the rind may be removed from the ham at first, and then it need lie in the marinade three days only. Wild-boar hams are good either when cooked fresh or after they have been cured and smoked. Time to roast the ham, about three hours. Probable cost, uncertain.
A spit-roast game ham written for a kitchen with an open fire, a game larder and a butcher on the premises. Most of the work translates cleanly; the timing does not.
- Cook to temperature, not to three hoursWild boar carries the same trichinella risk as any wild pig, and the older advice of "about three hours" assumes a joint of unknown weight before an open fire. Use a probe and take the thickest part to 160F/71C, which also covers the coarser muscle of a mature animal.
- Keep the marinade coldEight days in vinegar and water assumes a cold larder. Do it in the refrigerator, in a non-reactive tub or a heavy bag, turning daily; the acid alone will not hold uncured meat safe at room temperature.
- SourcingWhat you can buy today is usually farmed or ranched boar, often sold skinned and already trimmed. If it comes without rind the recipe's own shortcut applies: three days in the marinade rather than eight, and no singeing or rind-removal at the end.
- A tumblerfulAround 8 fl oz, a cup. "Light wine" means a dry white or a thin red, not a fortified one.
- Before a clear fireA spit set in front of a bright, smokeless fire burnt through to a steady red heat. In an oven, roast at a moderate heat, around 325F, with the joint on a rack, tented in oiled parchment or foil as the recipe's oiled paper intends, basting with the marinade every 15 minutes as directed.
- Liquid glazeGlace de viande: strong brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets to a jelly when cold, warmed to brushing consistency. The recipe asks only for a short time in the oven; a few minutes in a hot oven sets it to a shine.
- Bread-raspingsThe dried, grated crusts of stale loaves, sieved fine and toasted pale brown. Dry breadcrumbs baked to an even colour are the same thing; press them onto the hot fat-side of the ham so they stick.
- Venison sauceIn nineteenth-century cookery that generally means a sharp sweet-sour sauce, port or claret reduced with redcurrant jelly. The alternative given here, the strained marinade boiled down with good gravy, is close to a poivrade.
- YieldA bone-in boar ham runs 10-16 lb and will serve twenty or more, hot then cold. It is a sideboard joint, carved thin, not a plated portion.
Wild boar had been hunted out of Britain by roughly the seventeenth century, so a Victorian household reading Cassell's would have bought its boar ham imported. That the entry ends "probable cost, uncertain" is the honest admission of an editor who could not quote a market price, since the thing was not sold by the pound at an ordinary butcher's. The long vinegar marinade is the standard treatment for any dark, close-grained game flesh in nineteenth-century cookery, doing the double duty of softening a mature animal's muscle and cutting a rankness that domestic pork does not have. The paper frill at the knuckle and the choice between glaze and raspings are pure service dressing, marks of a joint meant to stand on a sideboard and be looked at before it was carved.