Meats and Small Game: The Foxfire Americana Library - Foxfire Students (2011)

CURING AND SMOKING HOG

Meat was cured by the mountain families in several ways. Professional butchers today would probably shudder at the apparently haphazard measurements they used, but they often seemed to work.

Hams, shoulders, and middlin’ meat (and the jowl if you wished) were the pieces most commonly cured. These pieces were taken to the smokehouse as soon after the slaughtering as possible—preferably while the meat was still warm, and never more than twenty-four hours after. On some farms, the smokehouse sides were relatively open, being constructed of two to three inch slats with a three-quarter-inch crack between each. Many have told us that a common sight in the spring was smokehouses with gray smoke billowing out the sides.

Others, however, claim that a sealed smokehouse (usually logs chinked with mud) is better as it keeps insects out, keeps the meat cool in warm weather, and keeps it from freezing in cold weather. Arguments could be made for either kind.

The meat was taken to the smokehouse, thoroughly salted, and then set up on waist-high shelves or down in boxes or barrels to “take the salt.” Most preferred the shelf system as it allowed the meat to get the necessary ventilation more easily. Meanwhile, the winter weather provided natural refrigeration while the meat was going through the curing process.

There were different ways to begin the curing. Mann Norton’s father would simply “cover each hunk of meat up good and white” with salt. Taylor Crockett preferred eight pounds of salt for each hundred pounds of meat. He mixed the salt with one quart of molasses, two ounces of black pepper, and two ounces of red pepper. Then he smeared the mix on the meat, allowing it to stay six to eight weeks depending on the weather (longer if it got very cold). “Valley John” Carpenter used simply five pounds of salt for a two hundred-pound hog. Lon Reid used ten pounds of salt per hundred pounds of meat. Lake Stiles, rather than putting the meat in a smokehouse, would take it to his cellar which had a dirt floor. He would put the meat right on the floor with the flat side down, and allow the earth to draw the animal taint out of the meat, keep it cool, and prevent souring or spoiling.

If meat was needed during the winter months, the family simply cut what they needed off the curing pork, washed the salt off, soaked it overnight, parboiled it the next day, and then cooked it. If it were left all winter, it would go through a second operation in the spring.

When the weather began to get warm (usually when the peach trees bloomed), the second phase of the operation began on the meat that was left. It was taken out of the salt mix, washed, and then treated by any of the following means:

Cover the meat with a mixture of black pepper and borax to keep the “skipper” out. (Skippers are the larvae of the skipper fly.) The meat is then hung in the smokehouse.

Wash the meat thoroughly and coat it with a mixture of brown sugar and pepper. Then put it in a bag and hang it up in the smokehouse.

Turner Enloe washes the meat, and then uses a mixture of one package of brown sugar, two boxes of red pepper, and one box of saltpeter per hog. He adds enough water to the mixture to make a syrup, coats the pieces with the liquid, and then sets them in a box to age. Lizzie Carpenter shells a bushel of white corn. She puts some in the bottom of a wooden box, puts the washed middlin’ meat on top of that, skin side down, covers it with corn, adds another side, and so on until finished. The corn draws the salt out, keeps the meat from tasting strong, and gives it good flavor. Bill Lamb puts a mixture of borax and black pepper on the washed meat and then smokes it (see smoking section). Lake Stiles washes the meat and then buries it in a box of hickory ashes. He claims it never tastes strong this way since the ashes keep air from getting to the meat. His grandmother would bury it in corn meal which would do almost as well.

Many, however, prefer the taste of smoked meat. Holes were poked in the middlin’ meat, white oak splits run through the holes, and the meat hung from the joists of the smokehouse. Hams and shoulders were done the same way.

Then a fire was built inside the house. If it had a dirt floor, the fire could be built right on the floor. Otherwise, a wash pot was set in the middle of the room and a fire built in that. The fire itself was made of small green chips of hickory or oak, pieces of hickory bark, or even corncobs in some cases. Using this fuel, the smoke was kept billowing through the house for from two to six days, or until the meat took on the brown crust that was desired both for its flavor, and for its ability to keep flies and insects out of the meat.

If you intend to cure and smoke your own meats, you might want to write the Cooperative Extension Service of the College of Agriculture at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, and ask them for their booklet Curing Georgia Hams Country Style. It gives specific instructions such as:

The best slaughtering weight for a hog is from 180 to 240 pounds.

Kill hogs only when the temperature is 32-35°F. Souring bacteria multiply rapidly at temperatures above 40°. Cure the meat immediately after slaughtering.

Do not cure a bruised ham as it will spoil.

A good curing mixture is eight pounds of salt, three pounds of sugar, and three ounces of saltpeter. Apply the mix at the rate of 1¼ ounces per pound. Use a third of the mixture on the first day, another third on the third day, and the last third on the tenth day. Rub it in thoroughly each time.

On a ham, good salt penetration requires seven days per inch of thickness. Bacon requires from fourteen to sixteen days.

Add another day to the curing schedule for each day the weather is below freezing.

Then wash the outside coating of salt off and leave the meat at a temperature below 40° for another twenty to twenty-five days for salt equalization. Then smoke the meat, if desired. Don’t allow the temperature in the smokehouse to exceed 100°. Use hickory, oak, or apple as fuel.

Smoke hams until they are amber or mahogany in color (usually about two days). Smokehouse should be sealed and ventilated with fans, or completely screened for natural ventilation.