Butchering, Processing and Preservation of Meat: A Manual for the Home and Farm

This book is written primarily for the family to help solve the meat problem and to augment the food supply. Producing and preserving meats for family meals are sound practices for farm families and some city folks as well-they make possible a wider variety of meats, which can be of the best quality, at less cost. Meat is an essential part of the American diet. It is also an ex­ pensive food. With the costs high, many persons cannot afford to buy the better cuts; others are being forced to restrict the meat portion of the diet to a minimum, or to use ineffectual substitutes. Commercially in the United States, meat means the flesh of cattle, hogs, and sheep, except where used with a qualifying word such as reindeer meat, crab meat, whale meat, and so on. Meat in this book is used in a broader sense, although not quite so general as to com­ prise anything and everything eaten for nourishment either by man or beast. To be sure, it includes the flesh of domestic animals and large and small game animals as well; also poultry, domestic fowl raised for their meat and eggs, and game birds, all wild upland birds, shore birds, and waterfowl; and fish.

I Man’s Eating Customs.- Old and New Techniques Combined Solve Meat Problem.- Facts about Meat.- Changes after Slaughter.- Fresh and Seasoned Meat.- II Meat Characteristics.- Structure of Meat.- Composition of Meat.- Meat as Food.- Food Nutrients.- Modern Meat Consumption.- Game on the Table.- Domestic Rabbit.- Poultry.- Fish.- III Food Planning.- A Ready-Made Food Plan.- How to Figure the Family’s Needs.- Food and Economy.- Daily Dietary Needs.- Federal Meat Inspection.- Federal Meat Grading and Stamping Service.- Federal-State Grading and Inspection of Poultry.- IV Preslaughter Considerations.- Preparations for Butchering.- Equipment and Tools.- Primary Considerations.- Skinning or Flaying.- Examining the Carcass.- Regulations for Shipping Meat or Meat Food Products.- V Butchering Hogs.- Selection of Hogs for Slaughter.- Sticking.- Scalding.- Scraping.- Removing and Cleaning the Head.- Removing the Entrails.- Handling and Care of Edible Organs.- Cleaning the Intestines.- Chilling.- VI Butchering Cattle.- Stunning.- Bleeding.- Skinning and Removing Head.- Skinning the Carcass.- Opening the Abdominal Cavity.- Hoisting.- Splitting the Carcass.- Chilling.- Removing Tongue and Brains and Stripping Fat from Offal.- Cleaning the Tripe.- Slaughtering Calves.- VII Butchering Sheep and Lambs.- Lambs Selected for Slaughter.- Sticking and Stunning.- Skinning the Legs.- Fisting the Pelt off the Carcass.- Removing the Pelt.- Opening the Carcass.- Care of Internal Organs.- VIII Dressing Game Animals.- Big Game.- Dressing Deer on the Ground.- Butchering a Hanging Deer.- Removing the Tongue and Brains.- Saving the Head.- Small Game.- IX Handling Hides and Skins.- Salting and Curing.- Having Hides Tanned.- X Cutting the Carcass.- Pork.- Beef and Veal.- Lamb and Mutton.- Venison.- XI Dressing Poultry and Wild Fowl.- Methods of Killing Poultry.- Removing Feathers.- Chickens.- Turkeys.- Ducks.- Geese.- Squabs.- Drawing Poultry.- Wild Fowl.- XII Procuring, Cleaning, and Cutting Fish.- Purchasing Fresh Fish.- Purchasing Frozen Fish.- Catching Fish.- How to Clean Fish.- XIII Preserving Meat, Fowl, and Seafood.- Freezing.- Chemical Action Caused by Enzymes.- Ice Formation in Meat.- Drying or Freezer Burn.- Cut to Fit Family Needs.- Packaging Meat for Freezing.- Storage in the Home Freezer.- Thawing.- Cooking Frozen Meat.- Frozen-Food Locker Plants.- Curing Meats.- Pork.- Corning Beef.- Curing Tongue.- Lamb.- Curing Game Meats.- Curing Fowl.- Fish.- Pickling.- Drying Meat and Fish.- Smoking Meat and Fish.- Testing Smoked Meat.- Storing Cured and Smoked Meat.- Home Canning.- Procuring Raw Fish.- How to Pack the Container.- Recommended Canning Methods.- When Canning is Completed.- XIV Meat Products and By-Products.- Sausages and Puddings.- Other Meat Products.- Scrapple Recipes.- Rendering Lard.- Preserving Meat in Lard.- Soap Making.- XV Helpful References.- Appendix A—Publications of the Department of Agriculture.- Appendix B—Publications of the Department of the Interior.- Appendix C—Motion Pictures Produced by the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior.- Appendix D—Reference Books.- Appendix E—State Game Departments.- Appendix F—United States Agricultural Experiment Stations.