Introduction to Bacon & the Art of Living
The story of bacon is set in the late 1800s and early 1900s when most of the important developments in bacon took place. The plotline takes place in the 2000s with each character referring to a real person and actual events. The theme is a kind of “steampunk” where modern mannerisms, speech, clothes and practices are superimposed on a historical setting. Modern people interact with old historical figures with all the historical and cultural bias that goes with this.
American Ice Houses for England: Year-Round Curing
April 1892
Dear Kids,
The Ice houses in Calne constructed by Harris had thatched roofs. This photo is entitled, “Tough Crowd… ‘A Wiltshire Worker,’ from around 1905. This ‘worker’ is kitted out with knee pads and a leather palm guard; a sure sign he is a thatcher. Who, by his apparent age, has climbed many a ladder… The white sign notes that one Tom Popejoy was licensed to sell tobacco. The Popejoys seem to have been based at Burbage; giving a clue to our man’s location…”
Reference: https://thatchinginfo.com/thatching-in-wiltshire/
When I was not reading history and studying chemistry at Bowood, I was walking through the magnificent gardens with Minette. One sunny mid-morning we bumped into Susan Waite from the village of Calne strolling through the gardens. She was sitting on a bench reading and we introduced ourselves. She was fascinated to meet people from Africa and the conversation soon turned to the Bowood gardens.
She told us how “her grandfather was head game-keeper on the Bowood estate and her dad had a wonderful childhood roaming the woodlands and playing by the lake.” “The gardens were designed by Capability Brown in the 1700s,” she told us. (3) He was lauded as “England’s greatest gardener.” Lancelot Brown, as his parents called him, got the nickname, “Capability,” because he would tell his clients that their property had “capability” for improvement. (McKenna, 2016) We loved the story and made us even more fond of these beautiful place. I love it when interesting tales romance a location or a building.
We remained on at Bowood for a week before Mr Smith arranged with Mr Fife to instruct the servants to prepare the couch and take us to C & T Harris where we were expected. I remained very surprised that the discussion about curing was centred around sweet cured bacon and not mild cured, which was the way it was done in Denmark. I read in local newspapers that C & T Harris were advertising pale dried bacon and wondered what it was. Was it a form of mild cured bacon where the meat juices were used to increase the curing rate? Remember that bacteria in the meat juices and old brine removing an oxygen atom from the nitrate or saltpetre molecule consisting of a nitrogen atom and three oxygen atoms. Two being tightly bound and one sitting rather loosely enable the bacteria to, so to speak, pluck the “loose” oxygen atom off and thus change the nitrate into nitrite which in turn results in a quicker curing time. The short curing time is then, as Jeppe speculated because the old brine will already have nitrites and there is no need to first wait for the bacteria to do their “plucking” job. I however seriously doubt that pale dried bacon has anything to do with mild cured bacon.
These matters were swirling around in my mind when we bid farewell to my host at Bowood. We were to return to Bowood many times at the invitation of Mr. Smith and later Lord Lansdowne himself, but for now, we were on my way to finally visit the legendary C & T Harris Bacon factories in Calne. I could scarcely contain my excitement. It is nothing less than a priest being invited to visit the Vatican! I am allowed into the heart of the most legendary curing operation on earth. Uncle Jacobus Combrink, David de Villiers Graaff, my dad, and countless newspapers proclaimed the absolute superiority of bacon produced in this factory.
We drove through the streets of Calne. I looked at the “pink” houses. Ian Gruncell told me that “pink was once a common colour for many Wiltshire cottages. Achieved by using lime wash and a bucket of blood from the local slaughter house.” One such “pink” house belonged to Dr. Jan Ingenhousz (1730-1799). He was a Dutch physiologist, biologist and chemist who discovered photosynthesis in 1779. He died at Bowood and is buried in St. Mary’s church.
The “pink house” of Dr Jan Ingenhousz (1730-1799). Photo by Chris Downer and information by Michael and Beverley Painter.
Bowood, which existed initially as a hunting lodge, was acquired by John Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne. The 2nd Earl was Prime Minister from 1782 to 1783, and William Pitt, who became prime minister in 1783, made him Marquess of Lansdowne for negotiating peace with America after the War of Independence.
Photo by Michael N Beverley Painter
Shelburne was possibly introduced to Dr Jan Ingenhousz by none other than Priestley. In the same laboratory where Priestly discovered oxygen a few years earlier, at Bowood, Jan Ingenhousz discovered photosynthesis. It is fascinating that Calne hosted such magnificent scientists and from Bowood came these volcanic discoveries. Ingenhousz became a regular at Bowood! It is reported that Lord Shelburne used to say that the English philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, was the most good-natured man in the world until he had made an acquaintance with Ingenhousz or “until the arrival of the doctor.” He wrote to him that “there is no peace at Bowood for want of your presence”. (Letter to Jan Ingenhousz, 1792)
The relationship between Dr Ingenhousz and the Engish physician and scientist, Edward Jenner now becomes important. This formidable scientist pioneered the concept of vaccination and created the world first vaccine namely against dreaded smallpox and as such any of the many collaborators in this achievement with Jenner deserves a special place in human history. One of these is none other than Dr Ingenhousz. The most important contributions by the Dr was done from Bowood! His contribution was both in the actual scientific work of Jenner and as an evangelist in Europe of this new treatment.
It was from Bowood that he composed his first letter to Edward Jenner. Jenner privately published work he did on cowpox and its apparent power to protect people against smallpox in September 1798. This paper is known as the Inquiry and represents a milestone in the history of medicine. (Beale and Beale, 2005)
Let’s correlate the known movements of Dr Ingenhousz leading up to the September publication by Jenner and the time immediately following. We know that Dr Ingenhousz was in London on Tuesday 24 July 1798, two months prior to this publication. His whereabouts during August are uncertain. He visited William Herschel’s observatory at Slough on 11 September. By early October he was in Wiltshire, welcomed into the Bowood House party hosted by the Marquis of Lansdowne where we know that Jenner’s tract was being debated. The Marquis and his guests could draw on the renowned expertise and opinions of Ingenhousz who found himself in dairy farming country where he had the opportunity to learn more about cowpox. Jenner was initially alerted to the possible link between the development of immunity against smallpox by people who contracted cowpox when as a teen he overheard a dairymaid say, “I shall never have smallpox for I have had cowpox. I shall never have an ugly pockmarked face.” (Riedel, 2005) By mid-October, Ingenhousz had first-hand knowledge of what seemed a very relevant case history. This compelled him to write his first letter to Jenner on Friday 12 October 1798 (Beale and Beale, 2005), a month after Jennefers publication.
Ingenhousz developed into an oddity. “The odd personal appearance of the doctor, and the strange tongue which he spoke, gradually caused him to be looked upon as “uncanny” by the country folk who lived around. When late at night the lamp was still seen to be burning in the little room beyond the library overlooking the terrace at Bowood, then the peculiar sanctum of Ingenhousz and still known as “the Laboratory,” the inhabitants of the village which then existed on the opposite hill whispered to one another that the learned doctor was sitting up in the company of the Father of Evil and plotting the destruction of mankind.” (Life of William, Earl of Shelburne) I was fascinated that the very air about Calne was pregnant with creativity and a study of the sciences. No wonder that a firm like Harris flourished and developed into the undisputed world leader in bacon production, nourished in the fertile soils and the ether of Calne!
As for Minette and me, we spend the week at Bowood soaking up the same productive energies that seemed to be magically part of the landscape. Apart from the access to an impressive library, I had copies of newspapers stretching back to at least the last fifty years. I made it my habit to start very early in the morning while most of the Bowood residents were still asleep to very systematically paged through local newspapers where I carefully read any mention of the Harris operation. Besides these, the chambermaids and groundsmen provided me with by far the most vivid descriptions of more ingredients that blended together to form the legendary company.
C & T Harris: George in America
I have, for example, learned much about George Harris’s famous trip to America. In the mid-1800s, catastrophic events unfolded in Ireland that precipitated George’s travel plans. A devastating potato famine occurred between 1845 and 1852. When it was all over, more than a million people died and another million immigrated to flee the devastating conditions in Ireland. It was human suffering on an unprecedented scale.
The mass migration of people from Ireland to places like the USA happened on an unprecedented scale. It was reported in England that the emigration of 1847 would probably end up being as high as between 200,000 or 300,000 people from Ireland alone. An international effort followed and government agents from Europe prepared for the influx of people as the number of Irish heading to the port cities of the continent dramatically increased. Vessels were being hired to ship people to such cities at an ever-increasing rate, and Captains were forced to carry full compliments of passengers on every voyage, sometimes even exceeding the legal limits. (theshipslist)
While ships sailed from Ireland to North America with passengers, they sailed from America and Canada to Ireland with provisions. One such instance happened on 4 March 1847, when the Constitution and Sarah Sands sailed from Boston. The Tartar sailed in April. The destination was in all cases, Ireland! A New York paper reported that in March some $1,250,000 of supplies a week were leaving from that port for Ireland and about $5,000,000 from all parts of the U.S. (theshipslist)
The disaster in Ireland had a severe impact on the Harris brothers, as it did on food production around the world. The pigs stopped arriving in Bristol, threatening the existence of the butchers of Calne. George and his mom, Mary, hatched a plan to rescue the situation.
The plan was ingenious. George would leave for America to set up a pork business with an American farmer. They would slaughter the animals and figure out a way to carry the meat across the Atlantic, packed in boxes, well-salted to prevent spoilage. The plan was that the meat would cure in transit into ham. (Smithsonianmag) The plan was not novel. By 1847 barrel pork had been exported from America to England for years. On Saturday, 4 November 1843, a circular appeared in Boon’s Lick Times (Fayette, Missouri) by George K. Budd, where advice is given to American pork producers on what they can do to ensure that the barrel pork reaches England in an excellent condition in order to fetch the best possible price.
The plan seems to have been for the 23-year-old George to procure the pigs directly from farmers as opposed to buying it from American packing plants. If George could procure the pigs directly from the farmers, pack the pork in America and export it, the Harris brothers would cut out the middlemen and would again regain not only their supply of foreign pork but also affect the imports at the best possible price. The supply of cured meat for bacon from America to England was, however, the poor quality barrel pork. Besides buying the pork directly from the farmers and packing it himself in the USA for export to England, George planned to do it by using their well-known dry cure process. George was the innovator and the driving force behind the Harris brothers. His brothers said about him, “Of all us brothers, George was a long way ahead; he was the smartest businessman of any of us. He was the means of lifting us out of the old rut and laid the foundation of the new system and its prosperous future.” (SB)
One can only imagine what the voyage to America was like. Hundreds of thousands of Irish were fleeing the deadly conditions in their homeland, cramming the ships. “Adding to the misery, the northern U.S. and Canada had a hard winter in 1846-7 and the snow and ice were causing delays for many of the vessels. There are reports of gales and of vessels being stuck in the ice for weeks. The Albion, from Greenock, for example, sailed on March 25, 1847, and on April 10 hit the ice about 40 miles off Cape Ray. The vessel did not arrive in Quebec until June 4, 1847!” (theshipslist)
“Of no little consequence… This image, by a Mr Trotman of Chippenham, shows thatchers in Richard Jefferies area; a couple of decades after his time.”
Reference: https://thatchinginfo.com/thatching-in-wiltshire/
Curing – All Year Round
George arrived in America witnessing the misery of the Irish. He took a year travelling and visiting many bacon-curers. He bought bacon, lard, cheese, and other provisions that he sent home. In the summer of 1848, he briefly visited home and returned to America to open a bacon curing establishment in Schenectady (New York State). The venture failed and the American business was closed. (british-history) In the process, he was exposed to a development in America that would transform the way that bacon is cured and would give rise to the birth of the legend.
Ice houses started to be built in the northern hemisphere, including England, on the property of wealthy owners from the 1700s. These were generally brick-lined pits, built below the ground where ice from surrounding lakes was stored (Dellino, C, 1979: 2) to keep ice-cream, fruit and vegetables from the kitchen garden, but they were not used much in industry at this time in Britain. (SB) This concept of this natural refrigeration was first used as a business venture by the 23-year-old businessman and merchant, Frederic Tudor (1783 – 1864), from Boston. (Kha, AR, 2006: 26) He initiated the international distribution of ice in 1806.
Later in the 1800s, commercial cold storage facilities were being built at harbours in America and Europe, mainly for the storage of carcasses, fruit and dairy products. The ice was cut from frozen ponds, lakes or rivers in the winter and stored in the heavily insulated ice house. (Mfo.me.uk) “In the U.S., this method allowed farmers to slaughter pigs not only in months ending in an ‘r’ (or those cold enough for the meat not to rot before it could be cured and preserved) but during any time of year – even in steamy July or August. Curing was then the only way to preserve pork for periods of time longer than 36 hours. Such horrendously salty meat was eaten out of necessity rather than enjoyment, however, and it often required sitting in a bucket of water for days at a time before it could be rinsed of its saltiness to the point that it would even be palatable.” (smithsonianmag)
The revolutionary idea was the storage of meat on a commercial scale in ice houses for the purpose of slow curing. George did not make the link with the curing of bacon straight away. It was back in Calne where butchers attempted to find a way of curing bacon in hot weather instead of curing it in the winter and keeping it hard salted for summer use. Despite great effort, they were not successful. George made the connection and suggested that they should follow the American method of cooling, and so the prevailing cooling technology was applied to bacon curing for the very first time.
CURING IN ICE HOUSES
George persuaded his brother Charles, who owned the Grocer and Butchers shop on Butchers Row with Thomas and some of his staff, to go back to America with him and look at the process. “As a result, both he and Charles set up ice houses in their separate factories.” (SB) The first ice-house was constructed at the High Street factory in 1856.
After a great deal of experimentation, it was found that charcoal was the best insulating material for use in the walls around the ice-chamber. This fascinated me because it was the exact way that the “cooler” on my grandparents’ farm was built. Laid out with bricks on the outside and filled with charcoal on the inside. Water was trickled down the sides from the roof and the result was cooling inside to, oh, if I must think back and try and gauge the temperature, probably at around 15 deg C. In the very hot African summers, this was already a huge improvement. (2)
Thatching is very popular in Calne and the Harris ice houses have thatched roofs. A steel-plated ceiling was installed to pack the ice on with drainage outlets. They measured the rate of melting and could estimate the stock of ice that was in the ceiling at any point in time. They used the unemployed and people from the workhouse to collect ice from streams and ponds but in warmer winters it was imported from Norway and transported by Canal. The ice preservation process was patented by Thomas Harris in 1864. (SB)
“Most of the important bacon-curers throughout the country took advantage of the chance to improve their output by constructing such ice-houses under license.” The volume of trade from the two Harris operations continued to increase throughout this time and in 1863 the Harris family joined with other local interests to finance a branch railway line between Calne and Chippenham. Meanwhile, the income from the ice-house patent together with their own expansion enabled the two Calne businesses to increase their rate of mechanization. “At the High Street premises a new ice-house, furnace, and pigsties were built in 1869; and ten years later it was said that at the Church Street factory the pigs were moved almost entirely by machinery after they had been killed.” (british-history) “The first mechanical refrigeration was introduced in 1885. One 6 ton and one 4 ton Pontifex and wood absorption machines” (SB) “There was always close co-operation between the two firms and in July 1888 they were amalgamated as Charles & Thomas Harris & Co. Ltd.” (british-history) The legend of C & T Harris was born!
PIGS TO SUIT INDUSTRIALISATION
While the Harris brothers were working towards greater mechanization, shortly before the installation of brine refrigeration in place of the ice-house method, they set out on a campaign to persuade farmers to breed the type of lean pig best suited to bacon. Pigs were received from 25 counties in England and Wales in 1887, of which Wiltshire, Hampshire, Somerset, Dorset, and Devon were the most important. In the same year, large quantities of pigs were again being received from Ireland. (british-history)
I was well prepared when on Monday morning, 11 April 1892 Minette and I arrived at the offices of C & T Harris. We were warmly received by none other than Mr John Mitchell Harris.
Dear children, the level of excitement off the chart! It has been the most amazing experience imaginable. I wish Oscar and you guys could have been here with us. If my dad could see me on this amazing day, walking through the large imposing and formal doors and meeting John Harris! I am glad that Minette is with me to experience it all and for the time we spend at Bowood, preparing for this monumental day.
LOTS more to follow!
LOVE,
Dad.
Further Reading
C & T Harris and their Wiltshire bacon cure – the blending of a legend
The Freezing and Storage of Meat
(c) eben van tonder
“Bacon & the art of living” in bookform
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Notes
(1) Blackland Mill, Calne, c. 1903 from the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Chippenham,
“It is likely that there was a mill on this site in the 13th century or earlier. The mill was rebuilt in three stages in c.1800 to incorporate the mill, a mill house, and a detached granary. This mill had a 19 ft. wheel, three pairs of stones, and a loft, which could accommodate 1,000 sacks of wheat. Milling ceased between 1915 and 1920 but then continued until 1982. The mill was restored between 1982 and 1983 and then produced wholewheat flour until 1993. When this photograph was taken the miller was Abraham Lock.”
Source: https://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getimage.php?id=2411
(2) My grandparents used a similar system on their farm Stillehoogte in Vredefort district. The “cooler” had two layers of bricks. Between the inner and the outer was a layer of insulation of anthracite. The outer layer was “staggered”. Water dripped over the outer part of the wall to affect refrigeration on the inside.
They continued using the system well after they got electricity on the farm.
To the right of the cooler, my grandfather, Eben Kok is looking through his binoculars. He was sitting like that many afternoons to see who was driving over his motor-gates (motorhekke). He had signs put op next to the gates “privaat motorhek/ private motor gate”. The idea was that only his family could use these gates. The rest of the people had to use the traditional gates. He passed away when I was either 7 or 8.
(3) Susan Waite moved to Melbourne, Australia when she was 14 but graciously sent me a mail with the recollections of her childhood.
Susan Waite, Calne
(4) For more information on Capability Brown, see capability_brown_at_bowood_leaflet
Special thanks:
Special thanks to Susan Boddington (SB), curator of the Calne Heritage Centre, for the liberal supply of information, insights, advice and photos.
References:
Beale, N., & Beale, E. (2005). Evidence-based medicine in the eighteenth century: the Ingen Housz-Jenner correspondence revisited. Medical history, 49(1), 79–98. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0025727300008292
Cullen, L. M.. 1968. Anglo-Irish Trade, 1660-1800. The University Press, Manchester.
First Marquis of Lansdowne, Bowood, letter to Jan Ingen Housz, 7 Sept. 1792. Gemeentearchief, Breda, IV
Holland, LZ. 2003. Feasting and Fasting with Lewis & Clark: A Food and Social History of the early 1800s. Old Yellowstone Publishing, Inc.
Horowitz, R. 2006. Putting Meat on the American Table. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kha, AR. 2006. Cryogenic Technology and Applications. Elsevier, Inc.
Lawrie, R. A.. 1985. Meat Science. Pergamon Press.
Life of William, Earl of Shelburne/Volume 2/Chapter 9. 2019. Retirement. 1785-1788
McKenna, S.. 17 April 2016. “Highclere Castle: The real-life Downton Abbey”. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
Malcolmson, R. and Mastoris, S.. 1998. The English Pig: A History. Hambledon Press.
Riedel, S.. 2005. Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination. Journal ListProc (Bayl Univ Med Cent)v.18(1); 2005 JanPMC1200696.
Smith, Edwards. 1873. Foods. Henry S King and Co.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri), 9 October 1892
Susan Boddington (SB) is the curator of the Calne Heritage Centre. Information from private correspondence.
Warde, F. and Wilson, T.. 2013. Ginger Pig Farmhouse Cook Book. Mitchell Beazley.
Wilson, W. 2005. Wilson’s Practical Meat Inspection. 7th edition. Blackwell Publishing.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-one-family-helped-change-the-way-we-eat-ham-21978817, article by Rachel Nuwer
http://www.theshipslist.com/1847/ Emigration To North America In 1847
Photos
Bowood Photos: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/bowood.html
Wiltshire cut. Harrington, G. 1958. Pig Carcass Evaluation. Page 55. Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux Farnham Royal, Bucks, England. Robert Cunningham and Sons, Ltd. Alva
The Wiltshire injection: Wilson, W. 2005: 220