Civil War Recipe Tutorial:

Pork Cutlets

Original Recipe:

Cut them from the leg, and remove the skin; trim them and beat them, and sprinkle on salt and pepper. Prepare some beaten egg in a pan; and on a flat dish a mixture of bread-crumbs, minced onion, and sage. Put some lard or drippings into a frying-pan over the fire and when it boils put in the cutlets; having dipped every one first in the egg, and then in the seasoning. Fry them twenty or thirty minutes, turning them often. After you have taken them out of the frying-pan, skim the gravy, dredge in a little flour, give it one boil, and then pour it on the dish round the cutlets. Have apple-sauce to eat with them.

Source:

Miss Leslie's Directions for Cookery, Eliza Leslie, 1851

Modern Day Adaptation:

Not having a "leg" of pork to hand, we used a packaged plain pork tenderloin. Since the meat is to be pounded (we used the flat side of a meat mallet to avoid ripping the meat up) it should be cut about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. The making of the breading is somewhat tricky, since the onions must be cut very fine or they will stick out and burn during frying. Grating the onion produces a nice size but but they are so wet that they make the breadcrumbs clump up. You might want to grate them ahead of time and chill on a paper towel until needed for use. We may have used a bit too much lard for frying as most of it had to be poured off before making the gravy. Using a whole package of tenderloins (2 loins, each about 12 inches long, tapering from 3 inches at one end to 1 at the other) produced about four times more than three people could eat at one meal. They reheat nicely though, and keep for several days in a sealed container.

Results:

None of the diners are huge fans of pork, but these were ruled terrific. Tender, tasty--and the gravy was unexpectedly superb. As with all these lard-infested foods we must note that they were common in a time when hard physical labor was involved in just getting through everyday activities, not to mention what was needed on the job. A more sedentary age should probably consider alternative fats for frying, or having this dish as a very occasional treat.