Salt pork

[James Slonders]

How do you cook salt pork.. ? Just bought some from the supermarket, and I would like to eat it at an upcoming event.

James Slonders

[lambrew]

Re: Salt pork

The stuff you get at the super market is different from what they issued during the war. Todays stuff is used more for soup stock than anything else. If you want to use it any how, I would suggest steeping it for awhile to break up the brine, and then fry it up. There are several ways to make the real deal, all of which I have not tried. Try the search function maybe something will come up. I'm not much help I know, but I do try.

Respectfully....
Sean Collicott

[Gallo de Cielo]

Re: Salt pork

Yes, the stuff sold in most grocery stores (though called "salt pork") is really fat back. It can't last for more than a few hours in the field and is flabby junk that gives one the trots more than sustinance.

The stuff to get is called "slab bacon" these days. Quality meat markets (not meat departments in grocery stores but meat shops) usually carry it. My preferred source is Scott Hams. www.scotthams.com will get you started.

Ms. June who usually answers the phone is a fine lady and I've never once had issue with their products. The pork is meaty, renders a good clear grease for frying other victuals and lasts for a long while with no refrigeration. I usually buy a half slab, then cut it lengthwise and then widthwise into six hunks. I think precut the hunks into thick strips, generally getting 8-10 per hunk, wrap it in brown paper and drop them all into a gallon freezer bag for cryo-lockdown in my deep freeze. When an event comes along I grab a ration out (one pre-cut hunk) and I'm good to go. I put it in the deep freeze just to prolong it. The stuff can last weeks with no refrigeration as it is smoke and salt cured. At Banks' Grand Retreat the lads ate a quarter ton of the stuff with zero issue.

As to cooking it- I fry it. I don't eat it all at once and wrap the extra pieces up and drop them in the haversack along with some cornmeal dodgers which I took the liberty of cooking in the grease. I've seen some folks boil it. That produces a pork-roast looking affair that isn't too bad to eat but certainly isn't anything you'd want to plop in the haversack.

My two cents.

[Spinster]

Re: Salt pork

I put it in the deep freeze just to prolong it. The stuff can last weeks with no refrigeration as it is smoke and salt cured. At Banks' Grand Retreat the lads ate a quarter ton of the stuff with zero issue.

.

And the leftover we hauled home lasted right well too, and finally got consumed during that summer.


As for the young man's package of fatback--fry it up at home, in a pan, on the stove, just like you cook bacon. Drain the grease, and put what little is left in your haversack. Try to gobble the cooked meat up within about 24 hours. If it smells funny, let the crows have it.

Fatback just not cured to the same condition as true salt meat, and is really only good for seasoning green beans.

[Charles Heath]

Re: Salt pork

How do you cook salt pork?

James,

Got a skillet? Fry it.

Got a couple of rammers? Broil it.

Got a mess cup? Boil it.

A while back, Curt posted this (and more) in the midst of a thread largely about salt beef, but the info has some application here:

Boiling Salted Meats

Boiled Salt Beef

Soak for several hours. Dump water and refill with fresh water. Bring to hard boil. ADD SALT BEEF. When meat becomes whitish/gray (should occur quickly), remove from direct heat and simmer. This Hard Boil Then Simmer method seals the juices in the beef and makes it tender. If the meat is hard boiled for too long, it becomes hard and inedible.

If the meat is added with the cold water and brought to a boil, then you are making soup. All the flavors will be leached from the meat and into the water. Adding the meat to cold water and bringing it to a boil makes your meat as tough as shoe leather.

Boiled Salt Pork

Soak for several hours. Dump water and refill with fresh water. Add salt pork. Bring to a boil. After it has thoroughly cooked, remove the fat and enjoy the meat (what little there is of it.)

C. Fried Salted Meats

Salt Beef

Soak for several hours. Cut into small strips. Fry in grease or butter if available. Great when added with fried potatoes.

Salt Pork

"The westward migration owes much to salt pork. For pioneers, it was considered a staple in every larder. [ ] Homesteaders prized it above hard money. [ ] Saltpork begins as the fatty parts from the back, side, or belly of a hog. [ ] Fattier than bacon, it was cured by the dry-salt method but not smoked. Western cooks used it a flavor and as a supplement to meat. [ ] Unlike meat, salt pork would keep awhile without spoiling. [ ] The flavor imparted to foods is unique to itself. At a time when spice racks were usually unavailable, salt pork served heroically with bland foods. [ ] [Soldiers] often carried salt pork. They fried it, sopping hardtack in the grease, thereby softening what was an otherwise jawbreaking form of bread. Cowhands in line camps generally dredged slices of salt port in flour and then fried it. The grease served as a substitute for butter. By modern taste standards, it sounds pretty dreadful. Old-timers were damn glad to get it. The alternative was to go hungry. Off in the wilderness, several days might pass before some form of game found its way into the cooking pot. Salt pork, bread, and coffee provided a welcome supper and sustenance for tomorrow's hardships." From Matt Braun, Western Cooking.

Salt Pork Suggestion (Adamson's Grandmother in the Kitchen)

Soak salt pork (cut into slices for broiling or frying) in a one to two quarts milk and water; soak it over night if it is for breakfast, and for several hours before any other meal. The milk maybe either fresh or sour, and it is diluted with an equal quantity of water. Before cooking the slices, rinse them in water until it is clear. It will be found a very excellent method, and when once adopted will invariably be the choice of preparation.

Salt Pork and Sour Apples (Adamson's Grandmother in the Kitchen)

This makes a very satisfying summer dinner when served with Boiled New Potatoes. Cut the slices of pork; lay them in cold water in the spider (a spider is a frying pan with legs on the bottom - ed.); boil them for 2 to 3 minutes; then pour off the water and set the spider again on the coals; now dredge the slices in cornmeal seasoned with pepper and brown them on both sides in the spider. In another spider, fry 1/2 inch slices of good tart cored but unpeeled apples in butter or drippings after dredging them in a little flour mixed with a pinch of cinnamon or ginger. Serve the pork and apples together.

Floured Bacon (Matt Braun, Western Cooking)

Use thick sliced bacon. Lightly flour each side of the bacon. At medium heat, fry strips until brown on side. Flip and brown on other side.
This makes for exceptionally crispy bacon.

Ham and Red-Eye Gravy (Matt Braun, Western Cooking)

Fry ham in skillet. Remove ham but leave drippings. For each pound of ham, add 1/2 cup strong black coffee to pan drippings. Stir constantly and bring to boil. Serve over ham and biscuits.

This works well for all types of pig fat. You will be surprised how good it tastes.

The Compleat Housewife (Eliza
Smith, London, 1758; reprinted London, 1994) gives
"General Directions for Boiling" which mentions that
All salt meat must be put in when the water is cold; but fresh
meat, not till it boils; and as many pounds as your piece
weighs, so many quarters of an hour it will require in boiling.

"Slab bacon" is pork that is still attached to the rind. Side bacon (without the rind) also comes precooked and canned. I have seen it "whole" as well as sliced, and the local butcher shop/meat market hereabouts will set the "slicer" to cut slices as the customer wants.

"Salt pork" is salt-cured, but not smoked, meat from the belly of a pig.

There are not a whole lot, or much of any for that matter on "salt pork" in the 18th century that I know of. One of the best, albeit 19th century comes from an 1886 Grocer's Handbook:

"Mess (ed. salt) Pork shall be packed from sides of well-fatted hogs, cut in strips not exceeding six and one half inches wide and flanked according to diagram as nearly as possible, and not back-stripped, 196 pounds of green [not cured] meat, numbering not over sixteen pieces, including only the regular portion of flank and shoulder cuts; four layers to be packed in each barrel, with not less than forty pounds of Turk’s Island, St. Utes, or Trepanné, or 45 pounds of other good qualities of foreign or domestic coarse salt, and clear brine as strong as the salt will make it.”

“Clear Pork shall be packed from sides of extra heavy, well-fatted hogs, cut, selected and packed in the same manner as Mess Pork, the backbone and half the rib next to it be taken out.”

“Extra Clear Pork. Same as clear, except that all the ribs and backbone shall be taken out.

“Mess Ordinary, or Thin Mess. Of hogs reasonably well-fatted to light for Mess Pork, cut, selected, and packed in the same manner as Mess, no restrictions whatever as to the number of pieces to the barrel.”

“Extra Prime Pork shall be made from heavy, untrimmed shoulders, cut into three pieces, according to the diagram, the leg to be cut close to the breast; to be packed 200 pounds of green meat in each barrel, with the same quantity and quality of salt as Mess Pork.”

“Prime Mess Pork shall be made of shoulders and sides of nice, smooth and fat hogs, weighing 120 to 170 pounds each net, regularly cut into square pieces, as near 4 pounds each as possible, the shank to be cut off close to the breast; each barrel to contain 200 pounds of green meat, the proportion of 20 pieces of shoulder and 30 pieces of side cuts, and to be packed with the same quality and quantity of salt as Mess Pork. The prime pieces shall be cut free of blade bone. The shoulder pieces are not to exceed 90 pounds in each barrel. When re-salted, the brine shall be drawn off and new brine added.”

And as an aside...

In the 1911 Food Companion, there is also "Fat Back" which is defined as:

“Often confused with salt pork (which comes from the sides and belly of a pig) fat back is the fresh layer (not salted or smoked) of fat that runs along the animal’s back. It is used to make lard and cracklings and used for cooking.”

and, Salt Pork is:

“So named because it is salt-cured, this is a layer of fat (usually with some streaks of lean) that is cut from the pig’s belly and sides. Salt pork is often confused with fat back, which is unsalted.... It’s [salt pork] similar to bacon but much fatter and unsmoked.”

Please be careful at the grocery store, there are some brands of slab and sliced bacon that is not salt or smoked cured, but is just "regular" bacon to which salt and artifical smoke flavouirng has been added. Since it is not salt or smoked cured, it is NOT cured meat, and will spoil and poison one in short order.

Other than the search engine, one of the neat features about this forum's software is located at the very bottom of this page. Scroll down to the "Similar Threads" area, and you'll see the one about the Salt Beef, in addition to two unrelated threads.

In the field, you have a few choices when it comes to cooking the meat ration. The first question to ask is "how much time do I have?" and a good second question is "what else do we have to go with this chunk of meat?" Follow that up with "what the heck do we have for mess furniture?"

So, let's say you are at an event near the end of June in a field west of a small creek in south central Pennsylvania, and someone has boiled the living heck out of a couple of kettles of salt pork. They are issuing pieces of salt pork (that you think is way to small) and they toss it still steaming in your haversack atop a collection of hard crackers. Let's hope your coffee and sugar didn't get in the bottom of that mess. Did it? Oh, well, but there is a life lesson learned.

What to do? Stare at it for a while. Note the pretty rainbow colors in the greasy water dripping from the sides. Long for a potato or two. In recent years, I have become a real fan of desiccated potatoes, and when provided with a meat ration, some great hash can be made whether you have beef, chicken, turkey, salt beef, ham, salt pork, mystery meat, or even certain fish. Harmony House (not an ACF approved vendor) sells desiccated potatoes for a reasonable price, has great customer service, and dang near delivers even large quantities overnight.

Harmony House Foods

A wedge of cabbage, some dried apples, salt meat, powdered mustard, water.....

Use your imagination.

[lambrew]

Re: Salt pork

Slab bacon is good eating. My pard and I noticed that letting it sit in the haversack while marching around in 90+ Maryland heat actually makes it taste better. We used the grease to fry up the hard tack. That, and a cup of coffee, 4 star dining!:) Point is the slab bacon held up great in the sack in boiling heat.

Respectfully....
Sean Collicott

[flattop32355]

Re: Salt pork

Double smoked bacon is my usual alternative to scarcer real salt pork. It keeps all weekend, and longer, without refrigeration. Try to get it off the meatiest slab they have. A pound will more than do you for a weekend.

Now that I'm almost as old as Mr. Heath, I've found that boiling causes less gut trouble than frying (others mileage may vary). Cutting away excessive fat, then boiling with potatoes, carrots, onion and a little rice is a nice, easy way to make dinner. Extra meat can be thrown in, wiped dry and kept in a poke sack for later consumption.

Roasting over the fire is a good alternative. Heat a few inches of the threaded end of the ramrod a bit, then stick the meat on it. The heating will sear the meat to keep it from rotating when you turn it (or, use two ramrods). Elevating the ramrod on a stone or piece of wood, and holding down the other end in similar fashion keeps you from having to continuously hold it over the fire, making room for others to cook as well. Turn it occasionally until its as done as you like.

For me, the only advantage to frying is that you then have grease to fry eggs or softened hardtack, make corn bread, or donate to friends who need more than they are generating themselves.

For real salt pork, soak it long and well to reduce the salt level before trying to eat it, or it will pucker you from lips to tail.

[James Slonders]

Re: Salt pork

Thanks for all the info!

James Slonders

[J.H.Berger]

Re: Salt pork

The question that strikes me is how can salt pork be eaten without watering it for a few hours?? I have made some salt pork myself with rock salt and cooking salt. I have experimented quite a bit with it and watering or boiling really works best. But if you take that stuff and boild it only a short while or even fry it without getting the salt out of it that stuff is uneatable simply too salty.

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Salt pork

How do you cook salt pork.. ? Just bought some from the supermarket, and I would like to eat it at an upcoming event.

James Slonders

There are a number of salt pork recipes in the Feeding of America cookbooks and some of them are period. The site may be found at http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/...oks/index.html and search for "salt pork" in the recipe name or ingredients.

As others have mentioned, modern salt pork is very different from period salt pork. In the Summer 2006 issue (Vol. 14, No. 3) of the The Watchdog (before they merged with CCG) I wrote a comprehensive article on salt pork and included a number of period recipes (both civilian and military) for making and using salt pork.

The article included the many grades of salt pork and the differences between salt pork, bacon, fat back, and sow belly.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Salt pork

The question that strikes me is how can salt pork be eaten without watering it for a few hours??

The way I fix it in the field is to boil/stew it in shallow water in a frying pan as long as possible, even if it's only five or ten minutes, discard the water, and then fry it. Two changes of water is even better. It's still very salty though, unless you have time for several changes of water.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[J.H.Berger]

Re: Salt pork

Hank, I think that is a way to start with but I have never read about soaking the salt pork in period accounts like diaries etc. They only mention that they ate it boiled ( which would be best to get the salt out), fried or even raw!!???

[Chad Wrinn]

Re: Salt pork

If you are doing Confederate try to get ahold of some slab bacon.

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Salt pork

I have never read about soaking the salt pork in period accounts like diaries etc. They only mention that they ate it boiled ( which would be best to get the salt out), fried or even raw!!???

You've also read about the gut-rumbling consequences opf camp life. Eating raw salty pork is most likely an excellent way to get that authentic Texas two-step added to your impression.
Once upon a time, we brought back a dry cured ham from Virginia. Mom tried frying up a little of it for us. The effects, while remarkable and period correct, were nothing I'd care to try again. We found out it was good if you soaked it at least overnight and c hanged the water a time or two. Boiling would get rid of a good bit of the salt, but an overnight soak is better unless you're planning to toss it in with a big pot of beans. In a real campaign situation, of course, soaking out the salt would be all but impossible. Some people might be able to stomach it better than others, and it may be one of those things a body can get used to.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Salt pork

Hank, I think that is a way to start with but I have never read about soaking the salt pork in period accounts like diaries etc. They only mention that they ate it boiled ( which would be best to get the salt out), fried or even raw!!???

Not a soldier's account, but here's one example from the period of preparing fried salt pork without a pot to soak or boil it in, describing a husband and wife in backwoods Canada:

The frying-pan, having done duty as an oven, next appeared in a new character as a pot, for some slices of salt pork being put into it, it was immediately filled to the brim with water, and the pork boiled therein, until a certain proportion of the super-abundant salt was extracted. The water being then poured off it resumed its legitimate office as a frying-pan, and the rashers kept hissing and crackling away in a most enlivening manner, until they were "done brown." (Sketches of Canadian Life, William Stewart Darling, 1849)

I'm assuming you mean accounts of people actually preparing salt pork in the field, and not cookbook recipes, because cookbooks do often specify soaking or parboiling salt pork before frying. For example, from Haskell's 1861 Housekeeper's Encyclopedia:

"Plain Fried Salt Pork.--Cut the slices thin, and gash the rind, so that it will need but little masticating. Parboil, and fry slowly without burning the fat."

"Salt Pork with Cream or Milk Gravy.--Slice the pork very thin, freshen , and fry without browning..."

"Pork and Apple Fritters.--Prepare a light batter, freshen or use cold boiled or baked pork...[/quote]

"Plain Broiled Salt Pork.--Cut the pork thin, gash the rind, and parboil until freshened. Broil until brown..."

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net