Bingham Bulletin | 1920-10-15 | Page 7 | Tests Meat for Sweetness

TESTS MEAT FOR SWEETNESS Olfactory Nerves of tha "Ham Smeller" Smell-er" Must Be Always at Their Keenest. To the long list of unusual occupations occupa-tions by which men live, there must be added that of the "ham smeller" in a packing house. His duty is to Inspect meat products and judge of their soundness. , ; The ham smeller's only tools are a long steel trier and bis nose. He stands In a barrel to keep his clothes from being soiled by the dripping brine, and the hams are brought to ' him 'by workmen. A ham is laid before be-fore blm, and he plunges his sharp- -pointed trier into it, withdraws it and passes It swiftly beneath his nose. The trier always goes down to the knuckle Joint. ' la testing meat In that manner the man with the trier. Judges by the slightest shade of difference between the smell of one piece of meat and another. The smell of the meat ,1s almost al-most universally sweet, and that Is what he smells; the slightest taint or deviation from the sweet smell is therefore appreciable. It is not the degree of taint that he expects to find, bnt the slightest odor that is not sweet. When he detects an odor he th7o,- the meat aside, and If it is not unwholesome, un-wholesome, It is sold as "rejected" meat, but If It Is tainted it goes to the rendering tank. The ham tester smelis meat from 7 o'clock in the morning until 5 at night, and his sense must never become jaded or inexact, or his usefulness would be at an end. . Ham testing is not a pursuit dangerous dan-gerous to the health, as tea testing is supposed to be, but the ham smeller with a cold In his head is for the time being like a piano player-who has lost his arms In a railway wreck.