Salt Pork Recipes

[Pvt. McNutt]

This is going to be a really "beginner" question, but everyone has to start somewhere right. The way I look at it, the youth re-enactors of today are you hardcore guys of tomorrow! But that dictates that I still have a lot to learn before tomorrow comes...


So, my question at hand is if anyone has a really good, authentic salt pork recipe? I re-enact in southern california, and we're not known for our authentic rations, so I figured its time to start bringing my own. Now I just need tips from guys that have done it, on making authentic salt pork. Any ideas?



Pvt. Bridger 'McNutt' Zadina
69h NYSV Co. C

[Silas]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

There are a hundred and two pages in this thread Chawls consolidated from various threads about rations. I'm sure you'll find your answer there.

The Chawls wrote an excellent article in the now defunct Living Historian magazine. Color pictures, too.

[fahnenschmied]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

Making salt pork is easy. Using it, not so easy. Take whatever quantity of pork, cut in 3/4 lb to lb size pieces. Get a large sack of salt. Cover the bottom of some kind of container with a layer of salt, an inch thick or so. Put in your pieces of pork, not touching each other, dump more salt on, over, and between them. When you run out of pork, cover it with more salt. Now pour in a brine made of as much salt as the water will easily dissolve until the water is higher than the dry salt. You may need to weight down your meat with a rock or something to keep it from rising. Thats it. It will last a few years at least. BUT you can't yank it out, rinse it off, and eat it. It must be rinsed off and soaked, preferably overnight, and slicing it thin does help get the salt out faster. When properly "watered", you won't hardly know it from fresh pork - at least, it is nothing like ham. But if you try to cook it right out of the brine - be ready for an unpleasant suprise. You'll know why they call it SALT pork!

[Horace]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

PM sent.....

[tenfed1861]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

I just say try boiling it at home for about thirty minutes to an hour in a rolling boil.If done properly,the rind will come off like shipping tape on a box.It does cook the meat and it does have a good,juicy flavor to it.It also allows you to cook it up further by roasting (good for warming it up) as well as frying it,leaving you a decent amount of grease for cooking.
If you boil it at an event,boil the salt out,then boil again.If you have fresh crops on hand,cut them up and throw them into the mix.It will add salt to the veggiesa,as well as a pork flavor.
Hope this helps.

[Spinster]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

There are a hundred and two pages in this thread Chawls consolidated from various threads about rations. I'm sure you'll find your answer there.

The Chawls wrote an excellent article in the now defunct Living Historian magazine. Color pictures, too.

Silas, we still seem to have a techical glitch. Only when I have a cursor right over "in this thread" does it actually show up as a link to click.

Properly sized transportable splay kegs and mmmmmmtasty pork are a rather full time endeavour for a handfull of folks right now. Takes up a lot of room too.

What's not being said in big bold letters here--when you are ready to cook, one way to prepare the salt pork is to boil it--then fish it out and CHANGE THE WATER and boil it again. Third time may be the charm for some folks who can't handle that much salt. Oh, and don't use iodized salt to make the brine.

[Silas]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

Silas, we still seem to have a techical glitch. Only when I have a cursor right over "in this thread" does it actually show up as a link to click.

The hovering thing was intended because it is much cleaner to do that than to paste the entire link like this : http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...t+pork+charles After Bridger informs me he has read through the uber thread about rations, I'll send him my mega page handout with many different ways of cooking different foodstuffs. I prepared the handout for the NCWA seminar a few years ago. Since I needed to be able to speak for an hour, I tossed alot of info into that handout.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

And I'll just add that the boiling doesn't need to be done in a pot, for small amounts of rations. You can slice it thin and cover it with enough water in a frying pan to get it freshened pretty well, dump out the water once or twice and then fry it at the end if you want.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[hiplainsyank]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

I don't know how those boys tolerated having salt pork sandwiches with their hardtack, no pre-boiling, on the run. Desperate hunger, I guess!

[OlszowyTM]

To make salt pork & to use salt pork

While this piece of advice might grind on some folks nerve, I would suggest doing a google books search: http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search. Learning to spell, I had a teacher who imparted this nugget of wisdom, never forgotten, when I asked how to spell a word –“here’s the dictionary, this is how you look it up, you will learn the answer to your question & remember it far longer than if I tell you how to spell it.” She was right....the stuff I dig up & find for myself stays with me far longer.

Choose the advance search function
100 results per page
select full view, english language
limit your search to 1850-1870

There can be no argument about how you choose to process your pork, if you select your method from among these many jewels, including:

type “salting pork” to find out how to make salt pork from fresh into the exact phrase box & it gets you 238 hits from period primary sources, including:.

The Hog (with directions for salting pork & Curing Hams & Bacon)-1865

http://books.google.com/books?id=9h1IAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22salting+pork%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1850&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1870&num=100&as_brr=1&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

The New England Farmer – 1857

http://books.google.com/books?id=YP8OAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA150&dq=%22salting+pork%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1850&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1870&num=100&as_brr=1&cd=3#v=onepage&q=%22salting%20pork%22&f=false

The Cultivator (Salting pork for summer use)-1852

http://books.google.com/books?id=d3ZKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA56&dq=%22salting+pork%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1850&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1870&num=100&as_brr=1&cd=8#v=onepage&q=%22salting%20pork%22&f=false

Our Farm of 4 acres & the Money We Made By It-1860

http://books.google.com/books?id=qioMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67&dq=%22salting+pork%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1850&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1870&num=100&as_brr=1&cd=58#v=onepage&q=%22salting%20pork%22&f=false

type “salt pork” to find out how to use salt pork gets you 811 period primary references for cooking salt pork.
Scott’s dictionary-1864

http://books.google.com/books?id=EgZCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA196&dq=%22salt+pork%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1850&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1870&num=100&as_brr=1&cd=7#v=onepage&q=%22salt%20pork%22&f=false

Documents of the US Sanitary Commission-1866

http://books.google.com/books?id=cpU7AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA10&dq=%22salt+pork%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1850&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1870&num=100&as_brr=1&cd=13#v=onepage&q=%22salt%20pork%22&f=false

The Journal of the United Service Institution-1859

http://books.google.com/books?id=Qj8mAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA140&dq=%22salt+pork%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1850&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1870&num=100&as_brr=1&cd=17#v=onepage&q=%22salt%20pork%22&f=false

Handbook for Active Service-1861

http://books.google.com/books?id=YGkDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA80&dq=%22salt+pork%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1850&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1870&num=100&as_brr=1&cd=25#v=onepage&q=%22salt%20pork%22&f=false

Customs of Service- Kautz 1864

http://books.google.com/books?id=bklKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA261&dq=%22salt+pork%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1850&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1870&num=100&as_brr=1&cd=14#v=onepage&q=%22salt%20pork%22&f=false

Opening up the date parameters will significantly increase your hits, but has the added benefit of picking up references in published diaries and other primary sources.

Happy hunting & good luck with your new “hobby within a hobby”.

[Pvt. McNutt]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

Thanks a ton gents, this is really helping. Now is there a specific type of pork I should use or that works best? And also how long should the meat be kept in the salt and brine and how should it be stored before use?

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

While the point of salted meat is that you can transport it without much spoilage, you might want to read the period recipes with, er, a few grains of salt. This is one case where "if they'd had it they'd have used it" might make some sense. If recipes call for keeping the meat in a cellar or spring house. I'd suggest the refrigerator unless you want an authentic period case of the skitters. As for how long to brine the meat, you need to read the recipes to see what they say about that. You want the meat throughly salted all the way through with no question about it.

Use your common sense. Starting with good materials helps. As you've been warned, don't use iodized salt and make sure your brining container is sanitized (I tend to scald everything I use and work on waxed paper; if you use a bare cutting board, make sure you sanitize it before and after.). Modern pork is leaner than you'd have found back when, but it's also fed cleaner and carries less risk of trichinosis. Buy the freshest cut of pork you can find--this is not the time to go for the manager's specials in the short-dated case, but you can find decent deals when a store has pork on sale--and get it in the salt as soon as you can after you get it home. I don't mean to lay out everything beforehand and make a frantic run home from the store, but don't buy the meat days ahead of time. You might find it easier to work with boneless cuts.

As for soaking it out, let me add a fervent agreement. During the centennial, my whole family found out what happens when you try to fix a salt-cured country ham without giving it a thorough boil-off first. That ham went through us about as gently as Sherman went through Georgia. In all seriousness, period accounts often mention sickness among recruits who hadn't got the hang of soaking out their meat. Later in the war, there are plenty of accounts of men eating uncooked salt pork, but then, there are plenty of accounts of sick men straggling, too.

[OlszowyTM]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

Mr Zadina- If you click the first link I posted & use the table of contents, you will see starting on about 212 just about everything you need. Start reading earlier than 212 if you want to know how to butcher the pig. While this is the camp of instruction section, there is some incumbent responsibility to read and process the info you are given.

[Spinster]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

Thanks a ton gents, this is really helping. Now is there a specific type of pork I should use or that works best? And also how long should the meat be kept in the salt and brine and how should it be stored before use?

Any cut will do, though the contract regs limited the number of heads in a barrel. A good splay keg is the normal method, some strong men to move it, and an axe to open it with.

[newshirt]

Re: Salt Pork Recipes

Here's how I did it for winter camp in February 2010:

Since I didn't have an oak barrel, I started with a 30-quart Rubbermaid plastic container from Wal-mart (the most period-correct one I could find :) ). I bought 25 pounds of cheap shoulder pork at $1.50 a pound. I then cut off all the fat -- all of it. I know this wasn't the period method, but I assumed the guys wouldn't tolarate all the fat. Cutting off the fat reduced the 25 lbs. to 17 lbs. It also meant the meat was cut up into smaller pieces. Then I bough A LOT of non-iodine rock salt and fine salt -- 45 pounds of it! I layered the pork in generous amounts of salt, never letting the pork touch the edges of the container or other pieces of meat. I boiled salt in bottled spring water (no clorine) to produce a brine that you could float an egg in. It tasted about twice as strong as sea water. Then I gently poured 2 gallons of cooled brine into the container. (Do not pour boiling water in, or the pork will cook.) All of a sudden, pork pieces wanted to float to the top, so I had to cover it and weigh it down. Warning: the pork must never come in contact with the outside air or it will rot. Lastly, I set it in the garage for two months.

The event came about 2.5 months after starting. I emptied the brine and pulled all the meat out of the salt, which by then was like hard-packed sand. If I had had a period-correct barrel, I would have done this at the event. The pork required soaking overnight, plus cooking for 4-8 hours to remove all the saltiness. Problem is: I learned that reenactors (even hardcore ones) don't like to wait, and won't bother to perform these last few steps unless urged to do so. I suppose the soldiers in the field were the same way.

The results were generally fantastic. The meat was very tender and not salty (when allowed to soak and cook for the recommended time). It looks and tastes just like fresh meat.

Serves 15 guys.