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Cold Spiced Round of Beef
The same in general as the preceding but the meat first pickled in a spiced brine.
This is a cross-reference rather than a standalone recipe: it sends the reader back to the preceding entry for the cooking, and adds only that the beef is brined in spiced pickle first. That single added step is the one that cannot be reproduced safely from the text given.
- No quantities, no times, no temperaturesThe entry specifies neither the salt concentration of the brine, the amount of curing salt, the temperature at which the meat is held, nor how many days it cures. A round of beef is a thick, dense cut that takes many days for brine to reach the centre, and it is held at cure temperature the whole time. Curing without measured salt and controlled refrigeration is where botulism and other anaerobic risks live.
- Saltpetre is the unstated ingredientNineteenth-century spiced brines for beef commonly contained saltpetre (potassium nitrate), which fixes the pink colour and suppresses spoilage organisms. Where it is used it is dosed by weight against the weight of meat and brine, and overdosing is harmful. No dose appears here at all, and the entry does not name the ingredient.
- "The same in general as the preceding"Old books were printed to be read in sequence, and a page pulled out of context loses half its instructions. Whatever cooking method, weight of beef and timing the previous entry gave, this recipe assumes them silently. Read it as a note appended to another recipe, not as a procedure.
- What a round isThe round is the rear leg, sold today as top round, bottom round and eye of round. A period "round of beef" was a large joint, far bigger than anything cut at a modern counter, so any brining time implied here would have been for a much greater mass.
- If you want to make itSpiced beef is still made, and current recipes give brine strength, curing-salt weight per pound of meat, refrigeration temperature and cure duration as measured figures. Use one of those.
History: Spiced beef belongs to the winter calendar. In England and Ireland a round or silverside was rubbed or brined with salt, saltpetre, sugar or treacle and a heavy hand of allspice, black pepper, cloves and juniper, turned daily for a week or more, then simmered slowly and pressed, to be eaten cold in slices through the Christmas season. The tradition crossed to America and settled in particularly around Nashville and central Kentucky, where a spiced round studded with fat and seasoning is still a holiday item. The practical appeal of such a joint was that a cured round keeps, carves cold without falling apart, and feeds a table for days, which is what a hotel or a large household needed from beef in the era before reliable refrigeration.