In Somersetshire and Wiltshire, the following is the common process:—
When the hogs are prepared, the sides are first laid in large wooden troughs and sprinkled over with rock salt, and there left unmoved for four-and-twenty hours, in order to let all the blood and other superfluous juices be completely drained off from them.
After this they are taken up and thoroughly wiped, and some fresh bay-salt, previously heated in an iron frying-pan, is rubbed into the flesh until it has absorbed a sufficient quantity. This rubbing is continued for four successive days, during which the flitches are usually turned every second day. Where the large hogs are killed it becomes necessary to keep the flitches in brine for three weeks, and after that interval to turn them out and dry them in the common manner.
In the county of Westmoreland, which is celebrated for the flavor of its hams, the following method prevails:—First they are thoroughly rubbed, usually with bay-salt alone, after which some curers advise that they shall be closely covered up, while others leave them on a stone for the purpose of draining off the brine. At the expiration of five days this friction is repeated with equal diligence, but the bay-salt is then combined with somewhat more than an ounce of saltpetre to each ham. They are next suffered to lie about a week either in hogsheads among the brine, or on stone benches, after which they are hung up in the chimney to dry. In this last part of the process there is a difference of practice. By some they are suspended so that they shall be dried solely by the heat arising from the fire below, without being exposed at all to the smoke, while by others they are hung up in the midst of the smoke, whether this arises from coals or peat.
In Yorkshire, after the pig has been killed, it is allowed to hang twenty-four hours previous to being cut up; one pound of saltpetre is then rubbed into a twenty-stone pig, (of fourteen pounds to the stone,) and one and a half or two stones of common salt, taking care that it is well rubbed in; it is then put into a tub kept for the purpose. After having lain a fortnight it is turned over, and a little more salt applied say half a stone; it then remains a fortnight longer in the pickle-tub; whence it is taken and hung up in the kitchen, where it remains two months to dry, but should the winter be far advanced, and dry weather set in, a shorter period might suffice. After being taken from the top of the kitchen, the inside is washed over with quicklime and water, to preserve it from the fly; it is then removed into a room not used by the family, away from heat, and where it will be kept perfectly dry, and is ready for use at pleasure. The smoking system is rarely adopted.
Mr. Henderson, in his "Treatise on Swine" gives the following account of the mode of curing bacon and hams in Scotland:—
