Farm and home cook book and housekeeper's assistant

Thoroughly clean a pig paunch or stomach, and boil until well done. Take as much lean pork as it will require to fill the stomach, chop fine, and cook until partly done, then mix with scant V2 teasp saltpeter, and season with salt, ground pepper and cloves, and any other preferred spices to taste. Pack into stomach securely, sew up, and then return to the liquor in which the stomach was boiled, and let boil slowly 1 hour. Remove from fire and let remain in this liquid over night, then drain and smoke 6 days. Hang in a cool, dark, airy place. When wanted, cut in thin slices and serve without cooking. — [Mrs. G. L., N. Y. To Try Out Lard or Suet Only clear, fat pieces of meat should be salted down in the pork barrel, and all the thin, streaky pieces of lean and fat should be put with the sausage meat. The soft fat should be cut in very small pieces and put in a separate kettle, with a little water, and set over the fire to try out. The leaf lard should be cut up fine and put in another kettle, with a little cold water, to try out. While the lard is trying out, stir it up often with a long handled spoon or skimmer, and be very MAKING HEAD CHEESE 299 careful that it does not burn or scorch. Stirring it often will make the lard try out more evenly. When the little pieces of lard have shrunk to very small dark brown scraps, strain lard through a fine wire sieve into a perfectly dry and clean tin pail. For the sake of convenience and to save burning my fingers, I hang the sieve through a piece of board cut out to fit the sieve. The board should be long enough to fit across the top of the pail, and project several inches on either side. This little board will not only save your temper, but will catch all the scraps that may fall from the top of the strainer, and that would otherwise fall into the pail of lard. The brown scraps should be turned into a cheese cloth bag and while still warm, squeezed between wooden squeezers to extract any of the lard that is still in them. These squeezers can be made of two fiat pieces of board about 1% feet long and 5 or 6 inches wide, joined together at one end with little pieces of leather, and the other end whittled for handle. The lard squeezed out this way should be put in a separate pail. When cold, cover the pails well and store in a cool, dry place. Suet is tried out the same way. After the suet is tried out, pour it into a pan of ice cold water, and when hard, wipe it dry, wrap in white paper, and then put in a linen or close cloth bag and hang in a cool, dry place. Excellent for pie crust. — [Mrs. N. P., N. H. Canned Suet Trim and chop suet fine, add salt to taste, and 1 cup molasses for every cup suet. Can in air-tight jars. This is fine to put in cakes or puddings and no other shortening will be needed.— [Mrs. K. St. J., N. Y. Calf's or Hog's Head Cheese