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Fried Salt Pork
Cut in rather thin slices, and freshen by letting lie an hour or two in cold water or milk and water, roll in flour and fry till crisp (if in a hurry, pour boiling water on the slices, let stand a few minutes, drian, roll in flour and fry as before); drain off most of the grease from frying-pan, stir in while hot one or two table-spoons of flour, about half a pint new milk, a little pepper, and salt if not salt enough already from the meat; let boil and pour into gravy dish. This makes a nice white gravy when properly made.
A plain skillet supper: salt pork soaked to draw out the brine, floured, crisped, and finished with a milk gravy from the drippings. Everything hinges on the soaking and on how much fat you leave in the pan.
- Freshen it properlySalt pork from a modern butcher or supermarket is still heavily cured, and an hour in cold water or milk-and-water is the minimum. Two hours, with one change of water, gives a slice you can eat without reaching for a drink; the boiling-water shortcut works but leaves the meat saltier.
- What salt pork isCured fatback or side pork, unsmoked, sold in slabs or thick slices. It is not bacon and not pancetta — no smoke, no sugar, and a far higher proportion of fat to lean. If you can only find bacon, skip the soaking entirely and expect a smoky gravy.
- Slice thickness"Rather thin" is probably somewhere around 1/4 inch; the recipe does not say. Very thin slices can curl and colour before the fat renders, while thick ones stay flabby in the centre.
- Half a pint new milkOne cup. "New milk" meant fresh, unskimmed milk as it came from the cow; whole milk is the equivalent, and lower-fat milk gives a thinner gravy.
- Fat and flour in balanceMatch the drippings you leave to the flour you use; the recipe allows one or two tablespoons of flour. Draining off "most" of the grease is the instruction that decides whether the gravy is silky or greasy. The recipe has you stir the flour in while the pan is still hot, so keep it moving so it does not scorch.
- Why it stays whiteThe flour is cooked only until it loses its raw smell, not browned, and the milk goes in at once. Let it come to a boil and simmer a minute or two to thicken; a longer simmer over high heat will catch on the bottom and speckle the gravy.
- Salt lastTaste before adding any. Between the cure and the drippings the gravy is usually salted already, which is why the recipe adds salt only "if not salt enough already from the meat"; pepper is the only other seasoning called for.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities for the pork; the half pint of milk makes about a cup of gravy, enough to spoon over biscuits, boiled potatoes, or cornbread.
Fried salt pork with milk gravy was one of the workhorse dishes of the nineteenth-century American table, North and South alike, because salt pork kept for long periods without ice. Barrelled side pork travelled, stored, and stretched: a few slices flavoured a pot of greens or beans, and on their own they made a meal with the pan gravy poured over bread or potatoes. The Dixie Cook Book (1883) prints it without ceremony, assuming a reader who needed little more than the reminder to freshen the meat first. The same sort of gravy, made with the drippings of whatever meat was fried, is closely related to the sawmill and white gravies still served with biscuits across the South.