The saltpetre is not essential to preservation, but has reference only to the fixation of some of the red colour of the meat ; those who 432 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY do not insist upon colour prefer to omit the saltpetre, because it has a flat, bitterish, cooling taste, and kills the savour of the meat ; to ourselves even the colour of the saltpetre pickled meat is objectionable, because it is frequently very unequally distributed. The pickle should also contain moist szigar to the amount of double the weight of the nitre, besides bay-leaves, savory, cloves, and mace✪ Pickled Meat, all well powdered. The meat should be rubbed with the pickle daily during five days, while preserved in a cool place. From the sixth day it will have formed a brine, in which it should be turned round at least once daily. About the tenth day of pickling the meat will be ready for being boiled and eaten, in case it be intended to use it hot ; if it be intended to use the salt meat cold, it should remain in the pickle at least a fortnight. Such a pickle will pre- serve the meat for about three weeks. It extracts some albumin from the meat, and some osmazome, but the fibre and syntonin become more tender, and a savoury flavour is developed, which appears on boiling. On the other hand, some of the beefy musk flavour, which is objection- able to persons who have frequently to eat fresh or newly killed beef, e.g., soldiers in the field, is removed by the pickling. The use of salt beef, as of other salt provisions, is therefore partly a result of taste, partly of the necessity of making provision for a future day on which no fresh meat is obtainable. Next to bread, salt beef is the most im- portant part of ships’ provisions. In case the salt beef is to be Jmng and dried, and, may be, smoked, the pickle is made to contain 12 per cent, of nitre, and 25 per cent, of moist sugar, leaving 63 per cent, for common salt. When hung and well aired, it will get dry in a fortnight, and keep for many months. Meat immersed in pickle gains weight. In an old ex- periment by Donkin and Gamble, there was a gain of 3, in another of U, per cent. ; but in the common way of DRYING AND ROASTING OF BEEF 433 salting, when the meat is not immersed in pickle, but yields some of its water to fuse the salt and form brine, there is a loss of from 1 lb. to 1^ lb. in 16 lb., or from upwards of 6 to more than 9 per cent. The drying of fresh beef for the purpose of preserving it was apparently first practised in the di'y climate of Perv, and Chili, then in the G-uaranis, later in Buenos Ayres ; the product was called yarkee by the Peruvians, which was altered by the French to charqui and tcharki, and by the English to jerked beef. Villaris, a pharmacist of Bordeaux, made many experiments on it, with the aid of an oven :

AI-modernized reading of the original text

The saltpetre is not essential to preservation, but has reference only to the fixation of some of the red colour of the meat ; those who do not insist upon colour prefer to omit the saltpetre, because it has a flat, bitterish, cooling taste, and kills the savour of the meat ; to ourselves even the colour of the saltpetre pickled meat is objectionable, because it is frequently very unequally distributed. The pickle should also contain moist sugar to the amount of double the weight of the nitre, besides bay-leaves, savory, cloves, and mace, all well powdered. The meat should be rubbed with the pickle daily during five days, while preserved in a cool place. From the sixth day it will have formed a brine, in which it should be turned round at least once daily. About the tenth day of pickling the meat will be ready for being boiled and eaten, in case it be intended to use it hot ; if it be intended to use the salt meat cold, it should remain in the pickle at least a fortnight. Such a pickle will preserve the meat for about three weeks. It extracts some albumin from the meat, and some osmazome, but the fibre and syntonin become more tender, and a savoury flavour is developed, which appears on boiling. On the other hand, some of the beefy musk flavour, which is objectionable to persons who have frequently to eat fresh or newly killed beef, e.g., soldiers in the field, is removed by the pickling. The use of salt beef, as of other salt provisions, is therefore partly a result of taste, partly of the necessity of making provision for a future day on which no fresh meat is obtainable. Next to bread, salt beef is the most important part of ships’ provisions. In case the salt beef is to be hung and dried, and, may be, smoked, the pickle is made to contain 12 per cent, of nitre, and 25 per cent, of moist sugar, leaving 63 per cent, for common salt. When hung and well aired, it will get dry in a fortnight, and keep for many months. Meat immersed in pickle gains weight. In an old experiment by Donkin and Gamble, there was a gain of 3, in another of U, per cent. ; but in the common way of DRYING AND ROASTING OF BEEF salting, when the meat is not immersed in pickle, but yields some of its water to fuse the salt and form brine, there is a loss of from 1 lb. to 1^ lb. in 16 lb., or from upwards of 6 to more than 9 per cent. The drying of fresh beef for the purpose of preserving it was apparently first practised in the dry climate of Perv, and Chili, then in the Guaranis, later in Buenos Ayres ; the product was called yarkee by the Peruvians, which was altered by the French to charqui and tcharki, and by the English to jerked beef. Villaris, a pharmacist of Bordeaux, made many experiments on it, with the aid of an oven :

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Pickled Meat

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