One pound of salt to two pounds of saltpetre — twice as much nitrate as salt.
Take one pound bag salt, two of saltpetre, a little sugar, and a few cloves. Rub this mixture well into the beef every day for a week. Then it is fit for use. According to the size of the piece of beef, the mixture must be proportionally stronger.
From page 19 of the 1904 edition.
Cooking in Old Créole Days, 1904. Public domain; transcription unaltered.
The proportion is inverted. Every curing mixture before or since is overwhelmingly salt with a small fraction of nitrate; this is two parts nitrate to one of salt, rubbed in daily for seven days.
Potassium nitrate in quantity irritates the gut and, in large doses, interferes with the blood's oxygen carrying. Modern curing salts are deliberately dyed pink so nobody can mistake them for table salt.
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