The adoption of the mild curing system by C & T Harris only took place in the second half of the 1800s. I knew that that reusing old brine was part and parcel of the auto curing system of bacon production which, by 1861 was already in use in England, Sweden, Denmark, and Canada. In 1852 Youatt gives a far more confident reference to the reuse of old brine. I knew that the re-use of old brine was in its infancy in England in the 1820s and 1830s from a quote from The Complete Grazier where the reference speaks about it in very tentative forms and says that the brine can be re-used twice. Something about the timing and the sparse description of the process did not sit well with me. Just before tank curing, I included Auto Curing in the review. I worked through the progression of mild cured bacon to pale dried bacon and tank curing. I had just worked through the chapter where I give my historical review of bacon curing, Chapter 12.09: The Curing Reaction. I was reviewing my book on the history of bacon curing, Bacon & the Art of Living.
All I knew about him is that he was a pharmacist from Ulster in Northern Ireland. It’s been a while now since the early hours one Monday morning when I learned the name of the man who invented mild cured bacon, William Oake. Tourist’s Guide to Somersetshire: Rail and Road.
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