Not the New Fashion: Old Fashion Pork Cake

I'm hard-pressed to come up with a suitable introduction to today's recipe from Favorite Recipes from Matinicus Island Maine. It's a war-time cake, though would work for any time the cows aren't giving milk or the ferry isn't bringing dairy goods over to your island. Other recipes for cakes like this include dried fruit...you may do so if you wish. In this case, I back down off my "raisins aren't optional" stance.

Old Fashion Pork Cake

2 cups molasses
2 cups salt pork, cut fine
2 cups boiling water, turn over pork
2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons soda
2 teaspoons cassia
2 teaspoons cloves
2 teaspoons allspice
2 teaspoons nutmeg
2 teaspoons ginger
3 eggs
8 cups flour

Makes 4 loaves, bake 1 hour, not too hot an oven.

--Mrs. Raynes

Yes. Pork cake. Pork. Cake.

I think one of the reasons this is of the old fashion is the amount of ingredients. See that nice long list of twos? Easier to remember a recipe if you can just say 2, 2, 2, 2, 2; 1/4s and 1/3s and 1/8s and whatnot are much more fussy. I'd be willing to hazard a guess that it was originally two eggs, too; the third egg will make the cake rise a bit more, though, so stick to it.

With this entry, I'm going back and editing the publishing date for Favorite Recipes from Matinicus Island Maine from 1970s to 1960s. See, I found Verna Ames who gave us the Tomato Soup Cake recipe--I love the internet. She wrote back and said that she remembered the book being from the 1960s, and I trust her memory.