Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1899 — Ham-Smelling as a Business. [ARTICLE]

Ham-Smelling as a Business.

SB —— r- ■■ •’ A ’’Ww| To the long list of curious and unusual occupations by which men live, the Kansas City Star adds that of th*S| “ham-smeller” in a packing house. | His duty is to Inspect meat products and judge of their soundness. The ham-smeller’s only tools are a 3 long steel trier and his nose. He stands in a barrel to keep his ciothe»/| from being soiled by the dripping brine, and the hams are brought to J him by the workmen. A ham is laid before him, and he plunges his sharppointed trier into it, withdraws It and passes It swiftly beneath his nose. The trier always goes down to the- ; knuckle joint In testing meat in that manner the man with the trier judges by tium slightest shade of difference between ; the smell of one piece of meat and other. The smell of meat is almost 1 universally sweet and that is what ba> | smells; the slightest taint or deviation J from the sweet smell is therefore ap-fii preciable. It is not the degree of taint that he expects to find, but the est odor that Is not sweet. When he detects an odor he throws the meat aside, and if it is not wholesome it is sold as meat, but if it is tainted it goes to the-/ rendering tank. The ham tester smell* meat from 7 o’clock in the morning un-w til 5 o’clock at night, and his sens*|| must never become jaded or inexact, or hie usefulness would be at an end. • . i- i ■ ■ i» .u——■»