How Uncle Dan Cured His Ham

I found this handwritten "receipt" for curing ham and bacon in a cookbook printed in 1907 by the Merrillville Methodist Ladies Aid Society.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.

Here's my transcription:

To 100 lbs of meat take 8 lb. salt. 4 lbs. C or light brown Sugar. 4 oz. Salt-peter. Disolve saltpeter in about 1 gill hot water pour over the above, mix all well in a wooden tub or large Bucket
Rub hams and shoulders thouroly 3 times about 3 days apart, bacon 2 times, lay on incline board and let drip into tub holding salt & sugar
Ready to smoke in 10 to 15 das.
Brine in tub O.K. for the pickle pork. Pack meat in cool place in barn or granery in paper flour sacks in Boxes or Barrel with Oats

First of all, I like Uncle Dan's use of that old measuring term, "gill," meaning one-fourth of a pint or about four fluid ounces.

I do not know what "C" meant with regard to the type of sugar.

Saltpeter is potassium nitrate, a preservative.[1]

So, after 10 to 15 days of this treatment, you can smoke your 100 pounds of meat. (I wish the writer had included the details of how Uncle Dan did that.) Then you pack away your smoked meat, wrapped in paper flour sacks in a box, or layered with oats in a barrel.

And then, if I understand correctly, you use the leftover salt-sugar-saltpeter mixture in the tub (now seasoned with the liquid from the ham or bacon that has run down the incline board) to pickle additional pork. The necessity of food preservation is the mother of some pretty awful culinary inventions. But I suppose if your choice is pickled pork or nothing at all, you're going to eat pickled pork, and be glad you have it.


And, finally, I have no clue who Uncle Dan was.


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[1] And also an ingredient of gunpowder. I came across an interesting article about saltpeter here: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history-you-asked/what-saltpeter-used-and-it-true-it-reduces-certain-carnal-urges