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- Herausgeber: Merlin Unwin Books
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
Fans of Maynard will be delighted to read his further adventures in bacon curing. The last of the traditionally-apprenticed bacon curers, the author regales and inspires his readers with tales of - visits from the health inspectors - his colourful customers and work colleagues - his tips on curing, smoking and selling - the burglaries, bungled deals and triumphs - his growing reputation in the field - travels to learn how to make parma ham and much more.This book is the same addictive concoction of humour, tragedy and plain common sense, told in Maynard's disarmingly frank manner.
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MAYNARD
Secrets of a Bacon Curer
Maynard Davies
WITH ANN PURCHASE
To my dear wife Ann – thank you
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted to my wife Ann, for all her help, support and hard work in making this book possible. I also wish to thank all my family and friends who have been supportive at all times. A very special thank you to Karen and Merlin and all the staff at Merlin Unwin Books for having faith, patience and the vision to publish another book by me!
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
The publishers wish to extend particular thanks to Maynard’s wife Ann who transcribed his story from the tape recordings he made, because Maynard is dyslexic.
The recipes in this book may not conform in every small detail to contemporary regulations which the modern curer should research themselves.
CHAPTER 1
Goodbye Daisy Bank
We drove up the hill for the last time and bid one final farewell to Daisy Bank, our home for the last 15 years. We had had a lot of happiness there; we had more happiness than money but we thought happiness was a better currency. I gazed round at the hills and down the long track we had just driven and I remembered the first time we had driven down towards our new home with four small children, a very small amount of money and a lot of hope in our hearts. I had left behind a secure job into which I had been apprenticed after leaving school.
By a twist of fate I had become a Master Curer of traditional bacon and hams, because when I left school I could neither read nor write and if it had not been for the chance I was given by an old Curer by the name of Thea, I do not know where I might have ended up. When I had first left school I had tried for other jobs and apprenticeships but as soon as I told them I could not read or write I was shown the door. In those days dyslexia was not acknowledged – I had never even heard of it – and at school I was classed as disruptive and left to my own devices.
One day I turned up at Thea’s factory and asked for a job; he took one look at me and told me to clean his office windows. He had handed me some sheets of newspaper and told me to get on with it. He watched my every move while I cleaned the windows inside and out. When I had finished he had growled at me, ‘Turn up in the morning at six o’clock, and if you can’t be on time, don’t bother coming. You will need two pairs of clogs from the clog maker.’ I had turned up well before six o’clock the following morning and that was the start of my seven-year apprenticeship into the traditional art of bacon curing and good food.
After many years of learning, at home and abroad, I had met my wife Trisha, a nurse, and we had four lovely daughters. While they were young we decided to buy a farm and set up in business on our own. We had many years of hard work in the Peak District, a very hard part of the country with its very hard winters and as the children grew up and started to leave home, we had decided it was time to move to warmer climes. So we put Daisy Bank on the market and it was duly sold to a very nice couple.
Now we were leaving to begin a new life with two daughters, as one had married and was staying in the Peak District, and the other daughter had gone to train as a nurse. As I looked over the hills I remembered all the happy times and the sad ones too at Daisy Bank but I knew in my heart that now was the right time to move on and seek pastures new. I wondered what life would throw at us next.
We had left the little farm in a better state than we had found it and it was a piece of my life that I will always be grateful for. It gave me a lot of confidence and, for a child born in an industrial town, another look at how life could be.
But now we all got back into the Landrover and drove along the winding country lanes and down from fifteen hundred feet high to sea level. As we were going along the road I thought to myself ‘Fortune favours the brave.’ It was a new beginning and whatever came along I knew we would tackle with spirit and courage like everything else we had done.
We had already rented a bungalow in the suburbs of a large city and as we drove into the area, I looked at the bungalows, about fifteen of them all clustered together, and the man was a genius who had put them there as you could not put anything between them, they were so close together and I knew from that moment that it would only be a short stay! We moved in temporarily. The neighbourhood ritual on a Sunday was that everyone’s doors opened at the same time and all the men came out with their buckets and leathers and set to and cleaned their cars. At twelve o’clock they all went in and ten minutes later they all appeared again and proceeded to the pub. I knew this wasn’t for me and yearned for the hills and the animals and my solitude.
My wife Trisha was still nursing at the hospital and because she worked Monday to Friday, at the week-ends we looked for other properties. One Saturday morning we went to a small market town in north Shropshire. The Estate Agent's office was quite untidy, paper everywhere, and a man behind a desk looked up, never said anything, then looked down and carried on working.
I said, ‘Excuse me, Sir, we are looking for a property in this area, a small farm on a busy main road.’
He stopped his work this time and said, ‘I think we might have one.’
We followed his directions to the property, which stood back about two hundred yards from the main road and it was a little bit unkempt; you could see the grass was overgrown and the hedges needed trimming, but she looked a lovely old house: all she needed was a bit of love; nobody had loved her for a long time.
I thought, ‘This could be it,’ and I pulled up in front of the house, got out and looked around. You just know, sometimes, when things are right, and I had the feeling that this was right. I could see she was very neglected but I knew we could love her.
We knocked at the door and a man answered it. I told him we had come to view the property and he said, ‘Yes I know, the Estate Agent rang me. Come in.’ I shook hands with the man but it was an uncomfortable feeling I got straightaway and I thought to myself: ‘When you shake hands with this man, you have to count your fingers!’ but I was not going to be put off.
We walked through a passageway into a lovely room with a roaring log fire in a lovely old Shropshire grate; in fact it was such a nice scene you could have put it on a Christmas card. We went into the kitchen, a big kitchen but it did need some love. We walked round the house and I thought he would have been better with a mop and bucket, keeping the place clean, but I did not make any comment. As we walked round the whole house I thought it could be made into a home, so I asked the man his name and he told me it was Williams. I asked him if we could go round the out-buildings and he agreed, and after that we walked round the fields.
Trish and I met him back at the house, and we went into the kitchen where we met his wife. I said to the owner that, having discussed it with Trisha, we would like to make him an offer for the property but we could not offer the asking price so I suggested we called the agent down to discuss the deal. The agent came and we agreed on a price and date we could move in.
The wheels were in motion and we had bought ourselves a farm. I thought we could make a go of it although it would be hard work as it was in a very poor state and not been looked after very well, but when it was done I knew it would be a very nice home.
The day came when we moved in and left the bungalow. Trisha asked me to go down to the local shop and settle the newspaper bill, so I went down to there with the dogs in the Landrover. The newsagent was a pleasant man and when I told him we were moving from the area. He said he thought it was a pity because where we lived was nice.
I told him I thought it was very over-crowded and said I was glad we were moving. I explained we were moving to Shropshire and he wished us all much happiness and I thanked him. We shook hands and I felt that marked the start of our new beginning. The Landrover was packed with all the last-minute bits and pieces, the dogs were in the back and we set off to Shropshire.
We arrived at the farm ahead of the furniture vans and it all looked a bit desolate with nobody about but we had made our bed and now we had to lie in it. We went into the house and I was amazed to see that everything that could be taken had been: all the light fittings, the stove, and a lot of the stuff which had not been worth taking – but still he had taken it all.
That was a disappointment. The carpets we had bought with the house had been exchanged for second-hand cheap ones from an auction house as they still had the auction numbers on them. I wondered what else I would find. I walked round all the out-buildings. There had been a fully-equipped dairy and milking parlour but that had gone! He had taken doors off different places in the dairy, taken the milk tank out, demolishing the wall in the process as he could not get it out of the door. He had taken the farm gates, the oil tank: everything that was moveable had gone. I thought to myself, ‘Well, I hope fate pays him out in hard currency,’ but I wasn’t going to be beaten by this.
The furniture van arrived. Trisha told the men where she wanted all the furniture putting and so the unloading began. It was eight o’clock at night before it was all done: we had only put one bed up, so we more-or-less camped out that first night. The next morning, the first priority was to go out and buy a stove as we now had nothing to cook on. Trisha, myself and the children all piled into the Landrover and headed off for the nearest market town.
Trisha went to the supermarket and I went to the electrical shop, explaining to the owner that I wanted a cooker. He showed me one and we agreed a price.
I asked, ‘Any chance of you fitting it today? We have just moved into a property and we’re a bit desperate as all the cooking equipment has been removed.’
He said, ‘Well now, it is already half past ten; we finish at twelve o’clock so it won’t be today.’
I said, ‘I would consider it a great kindness if you could help us out today as we have no way of cooking anything.’
He turned to me and said, ‘Everyone has their problems.’
I thought to myself ‘This is hard country we’ve moved to.’ ‘If you can’t fit it for me today, then would you fit it for me on Monday and meanwhile sell me a kettle?’ I asked – which he did and insisted I paid him there and then. We went back to the farm and made the best of it.
On Monday morning he arrived as arranged. We unloaded the stove, but before he even took off the packing case he said he would need twenty pounds to connect it to the mains as we had only done the deal on the stove, not the fitting.
‘Fair enough,’ I said, ‘I’ll give you the twenty pounds.’
I was in no position to argue as I had to get some cooking equipment for the children and Trisha to have a meal. We paid him and within a few minutes he had connected the cooker to the mains and he asked if he could use the telephone.
I said to him, ‘No you can’t use the phone: you have given me no courtesy or kindness, you left us for the weekend with no method of cooking a meal. There is a phone down the road – use that!’
I thought that was the right thing to do – fight fire with fire!
We had been in the house about a week and we were not sleeping very well. I used to wake up every night, agitated and perspiring. Trisha and the children couldn’t sleep either.
I said to Trisha, ‘There’s something wrong with this house: we’ve got a presence.’
She told me not to be silly. Later that morning, Trisha decided she would go and do some shopping for bits and pieces, taking the children with her. As it was a cold day, I decided I would light a fire. I fetched the morning sticks and a full basket of logs and I was just about ready to light the fire when I suddenly went very cold and I could not understand why. I looked behind me and there was a man in a long blue coat with bright buttons on it and he had long golden hair. I blinked and he was gone.
I have never been so frightened in all my life! It was all over in a second, but it really unnerved me; I started to shake. I had never experienced anything like that before and it shook me to the core. When Trisha came back with the children, I told her I had lit the fire and the house was beginning to warm up, but I did not mention what I had seen as I did not want to frighten her and the children.
So I just said to her, ‘I’ve been thinking: we should have the local vicar to bless the house.’ Trisha asked me if I thought that was necessary but I just told her I thought it was the right thing to do.
I rang the local vicar, a nice man named Reverend Green. I introduced myself, told him where we lived and said I thought we had a presence. He asked me if I was sure and I told him I was, explaining about the apparition I had seen. I told him I wasn’t religious and I hoped that would not put him off.
He said, ‘Not at all.’
He said he would come up after the Sunday morning service, and I told him I would appreciate that. He had a nice way with him on the phone. We waited for him on the Sunday morning after the service, Trisha, me and the children. He arrived about half past twelve in a battered old car and I was so glad to see him. He came in, we shook hands and I introduced him to Trisha and the children. He said he would like us all to accompany him in every room where we would all say a prayer together: this was a new experience for me as I am not religious, but I thought on this occasion I might be converted.
We went up the stairs and started in the back bedroom. He put his vestments on and made the sign of the cross and sprinkled some holy water and then we said a prayer. That was the first room done. We walked down the passageway to the next room and repeated the process again, and we did this in all the rooms upstairs.
We then made our way downstairs. As he walked into the dining room, he put up his hand and said, ‘I feel there is a presence here.’ We all stood in a circle and said a prayer and Reverend Green sprinkled some holy water and made the sign of the cross and that completed the ceremony.
I said to him, ‘You don’t know how grateful I am, Reverend Green,’ but he just replied, ‘It’s all part of the job, from the cradle to the grave,’ and we both laughed. He had a sense of humour and I find that in life you take to certain people and I took to him. I thought he was a nice man. I asked him how much I owed him and he said, ‘Nothing.’
I said, ‘Reverend Green, I am a Curer by trade but I haven’t started producing anything yet as we have only just moved in. Would you do me the kindness of accepting a ham for Christmas?’
He accepted with thanks. When I started producing and Christmas came I made sure he had the nicest ham.
We had been at the property for about five days and things seemed to be going along smoothly. We were settling down and tidying the place up and it did need it. As it became more comfortable, we got more used to it.
The next morning we were still in bed at about six o’clock when we heard a very loud knock on the door. I looked at Trisha and said, ‘That’s a very early call, I’ll go down and see.’ I opened the door and there stood two men with another two men beyond them sitting in a large furniture van.
I said, ‘Can I help you?’
One looked at me and said, ‘Mr Williams, we have a writ here to take possession of your property.’
I said, ‘You’ve missed Mr Williams by five days.’
The man looked sceptical and said, ‘Can you prove who you are?’
I replied, ‘At the minute my wife is upstairs. She will prove who I am but I don’t suppose you will take that as proof. There’s my Mother and my birth certificate but I am sure you will believe none of those either, but if you will give me time I will get in touch with my solicitor and he will come and vouch for me.’
He asked if he could come in and I replied, ‘You can come in on the understanding that you will touch nothing and take nothing, as nothing belongs to Mr Williams here. He left five days ago taking his stuff with him - and some of my things too.’
The bailiff laughed. He came in: it was still only about half past six in the morning so I offered him a cup of tea which he gratefully accepted. We waited until nine o’clock and rang my solicitor, who said, ‘This is a fine kettle of fish: I think I had better come down.’
So he duly arrived bringing the deeds and the land registration and proof of my identity, and at last the man was satisfied the bird had flown. He asked me if Mr Williams had left anything and I told him there were fifty ewes in the bottom meadow which Mr Williams had left and never returned for.
The bailiff decided to confiscate them, and the next morning a cattle wagon arrived and the ewes were taken off to the auction.
I thought to myself: ‘Maynard, welcome to Shropshire!’
CHAPTER 2
Muck and Grand Openings
Now we had to start earning a living curing bacon, so we decided to start on the buildings. Basically, the old barn was seventy feet by forty-five feet and I planned out where I could put all the machinery, where I could site the sausage machine, the curing fridge, the holding fridge, the sink and washing up area, the preparation and slicing area. When I had it all planned out in my mind, one evening I sketched it all out on a Kellogg’s cornflake box.
The building was in a dreadful state. The previous owner had left dead chickens lying around, the floor was about eighteen inches thick in muck and I knew this was the first thing to tackle, so I set to with a barrow and I wheeled every bit of muck into the field and spread it. It took me about a fortnight to clean out all the muck and refuse.
After this, the building needed a really good clean, so I looked in the phone book for anyone with a high pressure hose, and found a man with one at £35 to hire for the day, so off I went to hire myself a high pressure hose.
The owner of the tool-hire company said, ‘You’re a stranger in the area, aren’t you?’
I said I was and when I gave him my address, he seemed to freeze up, went into the office, came out and told me I would have to come back with a deposit of £100 on the machine. I asked him why? He said it was company policy with new people moving into the area. Back at the farm I told Trish something was radically wrong because as soon as I mentioned the name of the farm, the tool-company wanted a deposit of £100. I went back and gave him the £35 hire fee and a cheque for the £100.
I thought to myself: this is going to be a hard climb, a very hard climb; every hurdle seems to get higher, but I wasn’t going to let this put me off. So I gave everywhere a good clean and power-hosed it all through. It took me three days to clean it properly, and then I disinfected it all the way through.
Next on my list was to clean all the drains to make sure they were running properly. In fact they where all clogged up with straw and it took me about a week to take all the man-hole covers off and give all the drains a good clean and to make sure they were running properly. After that I cleaned all the yard and burnt all the rubbish: now at last we had a clean start, which is the only way to do it.
You have an obligation in the food industry, to the people who buy your food, to have the standards right. I know this is old-fashioned and today people are more interested in how much profit can be made, how smart you can we be, but I didn’t belong to that era. I belonged to the era where the customer comes first and the quality of the product comes first and the people who taught me my trade were good-hearted and their attitude was the most important thing. I was going to live by that and I felt I owed it to all the people who had taught me curing, including the Quakers in America who had shown me their way of life. I wanted to carry on their traditions, so my principal has always been: ‘good food for good people’.
Back to my enterprise: that was the first stage completed and I knew in my mind’s eye how I wanted to lay the little factory out. I’d worked in a lot of factories over the years so I knew which layout would be best. It is important to lay the factory out so that there is a continuous flow to the work line, with the product going on a one-way system.
I knew I wasn’t making fast progress on my own and that I needed some help as it was important to set up the business and start earning a living. We decided to ring a local builder to see if I could get a helping hand. We happened to get in touch with a man called Sidney, who told me he was a builder. I explained that the main objective was to convert the dairy into a shop and the shippon into a factory.
He looked at me. ‘That’s going to be a big job,’ he said.
I told him, ‘We’ve both got to be stout-hearted: we can do it together.’
He looked at me strangely.
I said, ‘Would you be interested?’ and he said he would, explaining that he charged fifty pounds a day.
At that time fifty pounds a day was expensive, but I knew I had to get on with the job, so I agreed. Sidney went on to point out that he wanted paying fifty pound per day, at the end of every day, in cash. I was a bit taken aback but I agreed. We arranged to start the next day, and he arrived the following morning at eight o’clock.
We set to and were making good progress, when Trisha came down at nine o’clock with some bacon sandwiches. At lunch time she brought some lunch down, and at about four o’clock she brought a cup of tea and some cake. It was the custom where we came from that all visiting workmen were given their meals and you provided the food for them. It showed good faith.
We went on like this for a couple of weeks and when it came to repairing a wall, we were one brick short. Sidney said he had one at home and that he would bring it the next day. He did, and we worked all the next day until half past four. Sidney always stopped work at half past four; he changed his overalls and his shoes and by the time he had done that, it was dead on five o’clock: in fact you could set your watch by him.
I went up to the house and got his day’s money and came down and gave it to him. As usual he methodically counted the money out, then said, ‘The money’s wrong.’ I said I didn’t think it was, but that he should count it again.
He said, ‘I don’t need to count it again: you haven’t paid me for the brick.’
I asked him how much the brick was, and he said, ‘Fifty pence.’
I said ‘Alright, Sidney, I’ll go up the house and fetch you fifty pence.’
I went up to the house and told Trisha that Sidney wanted fifty pence for the brick, but she said, ‘No, don’t give him fifty pence, give him a pound and that will make him happier.’
So she gave me a pound. I went down, gave him the pound and asked him if we were square.
‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘You’ve paid me for the day and the brick and I’ll see you in the morning.’
But I said, ‘No you won’t Sidney, you won’t see me in the morning. I don’t want you working with me any more. We have treated you with courtesy and kindness and fed you all day long and yet you have asked me for fifty pence for a brick. Life’s too short to spend with people like you, so I would be very grateful if you don’t come again.’
I think I had done the right thing as life is short: you don’t want to spend it with people like that.
So I decided I would have to do most of the work myself. I planned to get the shop sorted out first and get the refrigerated cabinets in to make the shop look respectable. I bought the proper cabinets from a local dealer and the shop looked very nice when it was completed.
Next on the agenda were the curing house and the smoke house.
It is important when building a smoke house to put it in the right position to catch the right wind. You put balloons on canes in different positions over several days, to see which way the prevailing wind blows. Once you have done this you can site your ‘fire box’ so that it gets a constant draught. This is essential as there are no mechanical parts in a smoke house: it really is a case of earth, wind and fire.
A smoke house is basically a fire box and a fire, with controls to harness the wind. I designed the smoke house on the back of a Kellogg’s cornflake packet one night and I thought it was quite good.
I had already built one or two smoke houses before, but I wanted this to be a bit special. I designed all the flues and the chimneys and then went to see the local blacksmith, a jolly man who I don’t think could quite weigh me up. I asked him if he had a piece of chalk and something to draw on. He said he had; he gave me the chalk and a piece of metal to draw on, and I drew the fire box. He looked at me strangely and asked me what it was. I told him it was a smoke house.
He said, ‘We’ve never done one of those before’, but I replied ‘Well, that’s what makes life interesting.’
He studied the plan carefully and told me he could make me one, which he did. The smoke house was designed with a long fire box and a dual chimney and I knew it was right. With smoke houses, the older they get, the better they get, because the tar on the wall gives the bacon added flavour. They aren’t much use for the first few times so you need to smoke them three or four times to get a bit of seal on the walls. They seal themselves naturally with all the tar and after about a year they give the bacon a really nice flavour.
We gave our new smoke house a first run and it was a nice smoke and what you call a good ‘puff’, so all was going to plan. We’d got the smoke house going and the shop was coming along. Next was the curing house and then we would be ready to launch.
Ordinary concrete floors do not last in curing houses beyond five or six years as the salt breaks the concrete up. So I rang the local builders’ merchant and ordered the special granite mixture. The agreement was I would pay on delivery, which I agreed to.
The lorry arrived and I told the driver where I wanted it tipping, but he just sat there and said, ‘You’ve agreed to pay on delivery.’
I said, ‘Yes, I have agreed to that, but you haven’t delivered it yet. Tip it up and I will pay you. At the moment it belongs to you. Tip it up and I will pay you.’
He did and I went indoors and Trisha gave me the cheque; I went out and gave it to him. I went back indoors and thought to myself: there is something wrong. Everytime I give a supplier this address, payment is the main priority.
I said to Trisha, ‘This address is getting a very bad reaction. It’s going to take some living down because every time we ring up for goods, the suppliers either want cash on delivery or cash up front. It will take years to establish that we are proper people.’
From then on, whenever we ordered more supplies I used to make a point of telling people we were the new owners of the property and in the fullness of time, that started to work.
My next task was to put the proper floor down. Floors in curing rooms are entirely different to any other floor because they have to be salt-resistant, and the secret to this is: once they are put down, you top them with granite. You have a small machine which spreads the granite mix, and you then smooth it out. The granite seems to glitter. The floors of a curing house are never level; they should slope towards one end, towards the drains. If you have them level, the water gathers in pools on the floor and can be a hazard, but with a slope, any surplus water runs down to the drains. Too much wetness in the curing room encourages mould to grow and that is something in curing that you really do not need. I laid my granite floor and once completed, felt that was a good job done.
Trisha informed me we were spending a lot of money on the building, buying supplies and things, and that we were running out of money. We were half way there but the situation was serious, so I gave some thought on how we could raise some money. I wasn’t happy to go to the bank; I’ve never liked banks and always steered clear of them. I prefer to generate my own money so the only solution this time was to sell a picture which I had inherited from my Grandmother.
I remember my Grandmother: she was a very mean lady. I used to be taken visiting as a child with my Father, and she used to grow strawberries, but I was only ever allowed to have one! Everything was done for economy. As life went on, she passed away. We went to the funeral and after it we all returned to her house and the solicitor was there. We all sat down, my cousins and myself, and Grandmother’s Will was read. The lady who worked for my Grandmother came in and asked us all if we would like a drink. I had a coffee and some of the others had something stronger. The solicitor sat at the head of the table and proceeded to read the will. He read out that my cousin Wilton John Henry Walker had been left the bulk of the estate, the house, the furniture and any surplus money, and that Maynard Davies had been left a picture, ‘Nymphs and Shepherds.’
I thought to myself ‘That’s life!’
The lady came back in and asked if anyone would like any more drinks and I told her I would like a brandy as I thought I was going to receive a little more than a picture of nymphs and shepherds!
The picture duly arrived and it was so big it would not fit into the house so it ended up in the garage. I never really hung the picture but every time we moved house it came with us. It was surplus to requirements so the best thing to do was to sell it. I decided we would take it down to the local auctioneer. I rang and asked him if he would be interested, and he said he would like to see it. I loaded it into the cattle trailer as the picture was so large there was no other way of transporting it and took it to the auction house.
I took it to the sale room, the auctioneer came out and looked and said, ‘We don’t get many pictures of this size.’
He asked me how long we had had it, so I told him the story. He had a good look at it and told me it was of Italian origin, an unusual picture, and he would put it in the fine arts sale. I asked him how much it would fetch and he told me that, as it was a large picture, it would fetch between fifteen hundred to two thousand pounds and his commission was ten percent.
