Some very experienced epicures and cooks, think the old-fashioned way of preparing bacon is troublesome and useless.  They say that legs of pork placed upright in pickle, for four or five weeks, are just as nice as those rubbed with so much care.  The pickle for pork and hung beef, should be stronger than for legs of mutton.  Eight pounds of salt, ten ounces of salt-petre and five pints of molasses is enough for one hundred weight of meat; water enough to cover the meat well—­probably, four or five gallons.  Any one can prepare bacon, or dried beef, very easily, in a common oven, according to the above directions.  The same pickle that answers for bacon is proper for neat’s tongues.  Pigs’ tongues are very nice, prepared in the same way as neat’s tongues; an abundance of them are sold for rein-deer’s tongues, and, under that name, considered a wonderful luxury.

Neat’s tongue should be boiled full three hours.  If it has been in salt long, it is well to soak it over night in cold water.  Put it in to boil when the water is cold.  If you boil it in a small pot, it is well to change the water, when it has boiled an hour and a half; the fresh water should boil before the half-cooked tongue is put in again.  It is nicer for being kept in a cool place a day or two after being boiled.  Nearly the same rules apply to salt beef.  A six pound piece of corned beef should boil full three hours; and salt beef should be boiled four hours.

The saltier meat is, the longer it should be boiled.  If very salt, it is well to put it in soak over night; change the water while cooking; and observe the same rules as in boiling tongue.  If it is intended to be eaten when cold, it is a good plan to put it between clean boards, and press it down with heavy weights for a day or two.  A small leg of bacon should be boiled three hours; ten pounds four hours; twelve pounds five hours.  All meat should boil moderately; furious boiling injures the flavor.

Buffalo’s tongue should soak a day and a night, and boil as much as six hours.

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CHOICE OF MEAT.

If people wish to be economical, they should take some pains to ascertain what are the cheapest pieces of meat to buy; not merely those which are cheapest in price, but those which go farthest when cooked.  That part of mutton called the rack, which consists of the neck, and a few of the rib bones below, is cheap food.  It is not more than four or five cents a pound; and four pounds will make a dinner for six people.  The neck, cut into pieces, and boiled slowly an hour and a quarter, in little more than water enough to cover it, makes very nice broth.  A great spoonful of rice should be washed and thrown in with the meat.  About twenty minutes before it is done, put in a little thickening, and season with salt, pepper, and sifted summer-savory, or sage.  The bones below the neck, broiled, make a good mutton chop.  If your family be small, a rack of mutton will make you two dinners,—­broth once, and mutton chop with a few slices of salt pork, for another; if your family consist of six or seven, you can have two dishes for a dinner.  If you boil the whole rack for broth, there will be some left for mince meat.