Pork Recipe

The best kind of pork is fresh and pinkish in color, and the fat

is firm and white. The second quality has rather hard, red flesh, and

yellowish fat. The poorest kind has dark, coarse grained meat, soft fat,

and discoloured kidneys. The flesh of stale pork is moist and clammy,

and its smell betrays its condition. Measly pork has little kernels in

the fat, and is unhealthy and dangerous food. After testing, as you

would beef, so as to see if it is fresh, and making sure that it is not

measly, we have still to dread the presence of TRICHINA, a dangerous

parasite present in the flesh of some hogs. The surest preventive of

danger from this cause is thorough cooking, which destroys any germs

that may exist in the meat. Cook your pork until it is crisp and brown,

by a good, steady fire, or in boiling water, at least twenty minutes to

each pound. Pork eaten in cold weather, or moderately in summer,

alternately with other meats, is a palatable and nutritious food. It has

a hard fibre, and needs to be thoroughly chewed in order to be perfectly

digested; for that reason it should be sparingly used by the young and

the very old. The least fat is found in the leg, which contains an

excess of flesh-forming elements, and resembles lean beef in

composition; the most fat is in the face and belly. When cured as bacon

it readily takes on the anti-septic action of salt and smoke, and

becomes a valuable adjunct to vegetable food, as well as a pleasant

relish; and in this shape it is one of the most important articles in

general use.

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