RednekF350 said:
Just salt and smoke the way it was years ago.
I remember our 'family' butcher. My grandfather helped him build his smoke house & shop in the 20's and the guy was rather old when I was young. He & his kids had moved from the corner butcher shop into wholesale meat distribution, building a refridgerated warehouse next door to the old shop but Mom & Dad still made their own hams, bacon and bologna using methods they brought over from Germany in the 20's.
I remember watching him cut a ham, sharpening the knife & just laying it on the ham & it seems to cut w/ out any pressure, a few strokes of the bone saw & we had a half ham wrapped in butcher paper & tied w/ string.
The goverment shut him down 'cause he was still using antique, hand cranked stuffers. his scrapple was great, his bologna was preserative free and used all 'natural' [sheep intestine] casings and would mold after a week so saturday lunch was the remainder w/ the casing cut off & fried.
The regulators wanted him to buy motor driven equipment w/ enclosed gears ';cause they thought it was a 'contamination' hazard to use the 'old' stuff. The guy & his wife were in their 70's and the old shop was their lives. The closed the shop & died shortly after, their work was their life. What a loss...
I'm sure some people call that progress BUT you never read about this kind of shop killing people w/ e-coli & recalling thousands of tons of contaminated meat products. Govmt & big business have changed things but are they better?