To Cure Bacon

Ingredients

• 100 lbs. of meat
• 1 bushel of salt
• 1 lb. of brown sugar
• 2 ounces of common red pepper, coarsely beaten
• Salt
• Black Pepper

Directions

1. Rub meat with something harder than hand; and in packing it away, must be completely covered with the former preparation, have mixed an additional quantity of salt and pepper (say a handful of each), to stuff around the hocks.
2. Let the hams remain in salt 4 weeks, the jowls and shoulders 3, and the middlings 2 weeks.
3. Wash meat and hang, hams and shoulders hung by the large end.
4. Begin to smoke next day, and make 1 good smoke every day, until the weather becomes mild, or about the last of March; afterwards it must be occasionally examined, and the most indifferent used first.

Source — Creole Cookery Book
Prepared by Bali Hebert
Louisiana Anthology
June, 10, 2021