C
ckkphoto
Guest
I was doing some research into curing meat and came upon the origin of that phrase. Scraping the bottom of the barrell...refers to CROCKING meat. In the South, when they slaughtered pigs before refrigeration, they would fry the pig in little chunks. Chunks and boiling grease were steadily added to the crock. When they got close to the top, they topped of with a sealing layer of boiling grease. The whole thing was sterile and would keep for weeks or months depending on conditions. To use it, they scraped out meat and grease, then poured the boiling bacon grease back on top of the exposed meat to re-seal.
Even sterile grease will putrify due to molecular interaction, so after a couple months as you neared the bottom, things didn't taste so good, hence the phrase, Scraping the bottom of the barrell...! :wink:
Hope I didn't bore anyone, but I thought it was quite interesting.
Chris K.
Even sterile grease will putrify due to molecular interaction, so after a couple months as you neared the bottom, things didn't taste so good, hence the phrase, Scraping the bottom of the barrell...! :wink:
Hope I didn't bore anyone, but I thought it was quite interesting.
Chris K.