This is the fifth post in my family culinary history series. To start from the beginning, please see my Connecting with my Ancestors through their Recipes post.
Pork Cake
1 pound of fat pork, chopped fine
1 pt. of boiling water
2 cups of molasses
2 cups of brown sugar
1 pound of raisins
1 pound of currants
1 tablespoons of cinnamon
1 tablespoons of cloves
1 teaspoon of salt
6 cups of flour
2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of soda
5 cts. worth of figs and 5 cts. worth of citron chopped fine
Great the yellow part of 1 orange and 1 lemon
Squeeze the juice
(Very fine)
Oh boy… A pork cake. Where to even begin with this one. Clearly a… unique recipe, but one my great-grandmother obviously thought was “very fine” so worth trying. I hope. This recipe provided its own challenges such as the classification of the “cake” as a main dish or dessert, figuring out exactly what “fat pork” was, identifying and finding “citron,” how much “5 cts. worth of” figs and citron equated to today, and the actual instructions for how to combine the ingredients and (presumably) bake the cake.
A Main or Dessert?
At first, I assumed that this recipe must be like a meatloaf since who would make a pork based dessert? Some historical cookbooks even listed it as a main dish; however, many more listed it as a dessert (TheMudbrooker, 2020). And after beginning to purchase the ingredients, it became clear that the intention was the currants, figs, and citron were intended to be dried or candied, which implied more of a fruit cake like dish. This interpretation was cemented when I discovered Swanson’s (2013) post which even went so far as to say:
At its heart, pork cake was the epitome of proud poverty food. Every rural pantry would have held the essential ingredients: flour, salt pork, sugar or molasses, some spices and dried fruit. As another Ohio farmwife explained in 1872, “salt pork is almost always come atable in the farmer’s house, and an article which in many cases of emergency helps to make out a complete ‘bill of fare’” Pork cake took these basics and transformed them into a respectable dessert that a housewife could put before an unexpected guest. Most versions required no eggs, milk, or butter, so the dessert could be prepared even when the cows were dry and the hens off the nest. The cake had the additional quality of keeping well. One cook declared the cake good for “several months,” while another went so far as to write that the dessert “Will keep good for one year.” A pork cake could sit in the cupboard for weeks, waiting for a traveling pastor or a surprise visit from family, and emerge to do its creator proud.
I can’t vouch for the cake lasting a year and do not intend to find out, but the cake being the “epitome of proud poverty food” certainly makes sense!
Fat Back, Pork Belly, Or Salt Pork?
While I expected this to be easy to determine, it was actually challenging to figure out what cut of pork “fat pork” was exactly supposed to be.
Online sources interpreted this in many different ways including as pork fatback, salt pork, and pork belly, and this was even further complicated by the fact that there were several variations of the recipe out there explicitly calling for different cuts of pork (Biehl, 2012; Glen and Friends Cooking, 2019; Stroman, 2022; TheMudbrooker, 2022; Lake of the Woods Milling Company Limited, 1915).
After talking with several butchers at Kroger, Sprouts Farmers Market, and Publix, it seemed that pork fatback was the most likely candidate, but I was a bit hesitant to use such a disturbingly fat heavy cut so decided to also try doing a quarter recipe with salt pork and a quarter recipe with pork belly (if only so I would have something I could eat if the fatback was completely inedible!).
Fresh or Candied Citron?
Initially, I thought citron meant the actual fruit, but discussions with my mother eventually made me realize that it most likely referred to candied citrus peel.
However, despite it being relatively close to fruit cake season, no grocery store carried candied citron peel, so I decided to make a homemade candied lemon peel substitute of my own using Elien’s (2022) recipe.
This worked out wonderfully right up until I got distracted deconstructing a different cookbook, burned the lemon peel sugar mixture, and burned myself desperately trying to salvage the lemon peel from my error. Thus, in the end, I cut my losses and just ordered some candied lemon peel from Amazon.
How Much is 5 Cts. Worth?
Determining how much figs and citron to use in the recipe was a significant challenge as the amounts were listed in monetary value and not volume.
I tried to find the average costs of these ingredients for the time period my great-grandmother would have been alive using the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (1923) data, but I could not find prices that were specific to dried or candied fruits that I felt were reliable enough.
So, I changed tack and used the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Calculator (2022) to estimate the buying power five cents would have in today’s money. Using the year 1915 as it corresponded to the publication date of another recipe for pork cake recipe I found and would have been about when Irene would have been of cooking age, five cents would have the buying power of about $1.47 today.
Therefore, I tried to use about $1.47 worth of figs (about 89 grams) and worth of citron (about 50 grams of candied lemon) when I made the cake.
Directions
Having never made a pork dessert before, I had absolutely no frame of reference to even begin to figure out the instructions for making this dish! After looking over other historical recipes, I came up with the following instructions (Biehl, 2012; Glen and Friends Cooking, 2019; Stroman, 2022; TheMudbrooker, 2022; Lake of the Woods Milling Company Limited, 1915):
Pour water over pork, add sugar, molasses, spices and salt. Beat well. Add soda, half of flour and fruit, mix well. Add soda, half of flour and fruit, mix well. Add rest of flour. Bake 1 to 2 hours in three greased loaf pans at 350 degrees.
Pictures, Video, and Tasting!
Updated Recipe
Irene Caron’s Very Fine Pork Cake
1 pound of pork fat back*
2 cups water
2 cups unsulphured molasses
2 cups dark brown sugar
1 pound raisins
1 pound dried currants
1 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
75g dried Turkish figs, minced
50 grams of candied lemon or citron, minced
Zest and juice of one orange
Zest and juice of one lemon
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Using a food processor, chop up the pork until resembling ground pork. Place finely chopped pork into large bowl. Bring water to a boiling in a small saucepan, then pour over pork. Leave pork in water for about 5 minutes. Mix rest of ingredients into pork and water until combined. Pour into three large pregreased loaf pans, bake at 350 degrees F for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until toothpick inserted into cakes comes out clean. Allow to cool slightly in loaf pans, then cool completely on wire racks.
*Pork belly or salt pork can be substituted for a silkier cake.
Next Steps: Lemon Pie!
The next steps in this project are to make my great-grandmother’s (and possibly even my great-great-grandmother’s!) recipe for Lemon Pie!
You can read about my experiences making that recipe and the struggles I overcame while doing it in my Irene’s Recipes #6: Lemon Pie: Communing With My Great-Grandmother Through Her Recipes post!
Resources
Biehl, Mary. 2012. “Pork Cake.” Home Cooking, a cookbook and series of essays – Montana State University. Date accessed November 1, 2022. https://arc.lib.montana.edu/book/home-cooking-history-409/item-38.html
Elien. 2022. “How To Make Candied Lemon Peel.” Baking with Butter. Last modified September 21, 2022. Date of access November 1, 2022. https://bakingwithbutter.com/how-to-make-candied-lemon-peel/#mv-creation-154-jtr
Glen And Friends Cooking. 2019a. “1915 Pork Belly Fruit Cake Recipe,” YouTube Video, 9:26, Dec 15, 2019. Date of access November 5, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l29uvfVAxDM
Glen And Friends Cooking. 2019b. “1915 Pork Cake Recipe & Taste Test…,” YouTube Video, 10:26, Dec 8, 2019. Date of access November 5, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Chk6yovrAo
Lake of the Woods Milling Company Limited. 1915. Five Roses Cookbook: Bread, Pastry, Etc. Montreal, Canada: Gazette Printing Company Limited. Retrieved from https://ia902802.us.archive.org/20/items/McGillLibrary-rbsc-cookbook-coll-TX763F581915-18659/rbsc-cookbook-coll-TX763F581915.pdf
Paradise Candied Fruit. 2022. “CANDIED LEMON PEEL.” Paradise & Pennant Candied Fruit. Date of access December 26, 2022. https://www.paradisefruitco.com/store/paradise-candied-lemon-peel/
Stroman, Sarah. 2020. “Pork Cake: A Century-Old Technical Challenge.” Oregon Historical Society. Last modified December 8, 2020. Date accessed October 28, 2022. https://www.ohs.org/blog/pork-cake.cfm
Sutherland, Juliet, Stephen Schulze, and the Distributed Proofreaders Team. 2004. “Project Gutenberg’s The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887), by Mrs. F.L. Gillette.” Project Gutenberg’s The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887), accessed October 23, 2022: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13923/13923-h/13923-h.htm#Page_282
Swanson, Drew. 2013. “The Perfect Southern Recipe? Pork Cake and Regional Cuisine.” Okra: The Magazine of the SoFAB Institute. Last modified April 17, 2013. Date accessed November 1, 2022. https://okramagazine.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-perfect-southern-recipe-pork-cake-and-regional-cuisine/
TheMudbrooker. 2020. “Pork Cake, That’s Right Pork Cake (And It’s AMAZING!),” YouTube Video, 17:15, Mar 10, 2020. Date accessed November 8, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wa_Trt5EYg
Totum Farm. 2022. “Pork Back and Leaf Fat.” Totum Farm. Date of access December 26, 2022. https://totumfarm.com/products/pork-back-and-leaf-fat
United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.1923. Monthly Labor Review 16(3). Washington, D.C., March 1923. Date of access, November 1, 2022. https://www.foodtimeline.org/MLR1923.pdf
United States Department of Labor. “CPI Inflation Calculator.” Bureau of Labor Statistics. Date of access October 28, 2022. https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
