The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

as is of the best quality when fresh, and well cured when salted, as there is hardly any article more capable of exciting disgust than bad butter. To remedy this evil, the following process is recommended, in preparing butter for the firkin. Reduce separately to fine powder in a dry mortar, two pounds of the whitest common salt, one pound of saltpetre, and one pound of lump sugar. Sift these ingredients one upon another, on two sheets of paper joined together, and then mix them well with the hands, or with a spatula. Preserve the whole in a covered jar, placed in a dry situation. When required to be used, one ounce of this composition is to be proportioned to every pound of butter, and the whole is to be well worked into the mass. The butter may then be put into pots or casks in the usual way. The above method is practised in many parts of Scotland, and is found to preserve the butter much better than by using common salt alone. Any housekeeper can make the experiment, by proportioning the ingredients to the quantity of butter; and the difference between the two will readily be perceived. Butter cured with this mixture appears of a rich marrowy consistency and fine colour, and never acquires a brittle hardness, nor tastes salt, as the other is apt to do. It should be allowed to stand three weeks or a month before it is used, and will keep for two or three years, without sustaining the slightest injury. Butter made in vessels or troughs lined with lead, or in glazed earthenware pans, which glaze is principally composed of lead, is too apt to be contaminated by particles of that deleterious metal. It is better therefore to use tinned vessels for mixing the preservative with the butter, and to pack it either in wooden casks, or in jars of the Vauxhall ware, which being vitrified throughout, require no inside glazing. CURING HAMS. When hams are to be cured, they should hang a day or two; then sprinkle them with a little salt,