Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1875 — How to Keep Meat Fresh a Long Time. [ARTICLE]

How to Keep Meat Fresh a Long Time.

There is no good reason why farmers and their families should eat so much salt pork, leaving all the fresh meat to the inhabitants of cities and villages, when the following method will keep meat fresh for weeks, even in the warmest weather. I know, lor I have tried it for more than ten years: As soon as the animal heat is out of the meat slice it up ready for cooking. Prepare a large jar by scalding well with hot salt and water. Mix salt and pulverized saltpeter in the proportion of one tablespoonful of saltpeter to one teacupful of salt. Cover the bottom of the jar with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Put down a laying of meat, sprinkle with salt and pepper the same as if just going to the table, and continue in this manner till the jar is full. Fold a cloth or towel and wet it in strong salt and water, in which a little of the saltpeter is dissolved. Press the cloth closely over the meat and set in a cool place. Be sure and press the cloth on tightly as each layer is removed, and your meat will keep for months. It is a good plan to let the meat lie over night after it is sliced before packing. Then drain off all tlie blood that oozes from it, It will be necessary to change the cloth occasionally, or take it off and wash it—first in cold water, then scald in salt and water as at first. In thi6 way farmers can have fresh meat the year round. 1 have kept beef that was killed the 12th of February till the 21st of June. Then I packed a large jar of veal in the same way during the dog-days, and it kept six weeks. This recipe alone is worth the price of any newspaper in the land. —A Farmer's Wife, in N. Y. Herald