To Cut Fat Pork for Larding

The larding pork must be white and firm, perfectly dry and cooled on ice, specially in summer so to make it harder and to be enabled to cut it more evenly. Divide the pork into the required length leaving on the rind; remove a slice from the top of the necessary thickness to have the pork of the same thickness throughout, paring the two ends square, then divide it into lardons at equal distances cutting them perpendicularly as far down as the rind, for this use a thin knife, called a lard slicer, and cut the lard the size designated by Fig. 52, then cut them horizontally to obtain very square lardons of the desired size.

No. 1, lardons as represented in the figure are from three to four-eighths of an inch square, by three and one-quarter to four inches long. This size is for larding beef a la mode, braised tongue, kernel of veal, leg of mutton, etc.

No. 2, are three-sixteenths of an inch square by two and one quarter inches long; this size is convenient for saddles of venison, fricandeaux, tenderloins of beef, etc.

No. 3, these are five-thirty-seconds of an inch square, by two inches in length; this size is for poultry, large game, fish, sweetbreads, veal cutlets, etc.

No. 4, lardons of one-eighth of an inch square, by one and three-quarter inches long; this size is for small game, pigeons, chickens, etc.

The lardons as shown in the figures are represented one quarter their actual size.