Italian Pork
Take a nice leg of fresh pork; rub it well with fine salt and let it lie in the salt for a week or ten days. When you wish to cook it, put the pork into a large pot, with just sufficient water to cover it; and let it simmer, slowly, during four hours; skimming it well. Then take it out, and lay it on a large dish. Pour the water from the pot into an earthen pan; skim it, and let it cool while you are skinning the pork. Then put into a pot, a pint of good cider vinegar, mixed with half a pound of brown sugar, and a pint of the water in which the pork has been boiled, and from which all the fat has been carefully skimmed off. Put in the pork with the upper side towards the bottom of the pot. Set it again over the fire, (which must first be increased,) and heat the inside of the pot-lid by standing it upright against the front of the fire. Then cover the pot closely, and let the pork stew for an hour and a half longer; basting it frequently with the liquid around it, and keeping the pot-lid as hot as possible that the meat may be well browned. When done, the pork will have somewhat the appearance of being coated with molasses. Serve up the gravy with it. What is left of the meat may be sliced cold for breakfast or luncheon.
You may stew with it, when the pork is put into the pot a second time, some large chestnuts, previously boiled and peeled. Or, instead of chestnuts, sweet potatos, scraped, split, and cut into small pieces.