In Farmer Boy, Chapter 22, “Fall of the Year,” Almanzo and Royal place hams and shoulders “carefully into barrels of brown pork-pickle, which mother made of salt, maple sugar, saltpeter, and water, boiled together. Pork-pickle had a stinging smell that felt like a sneeze.”
An 1877 receipt for pork-pickle, used to cure hams:
For every ham, half a pound each of salt and brown sugar, half an ounce each of cayenne pepper, allspice, and saltpeter; mix and rub well over the hams, laying them in the barrel they are to be kept in with the skin side down; let them remain a week; make a pickle of wter and salt strong enough to bear an egg, add it to half a pound of sugar, pour over the mans till they are thoroughly covered, let them remain four weeks, take out and hang up to dry for at least a week before smoking; smoke with corn-cobs or hickory chips.
