How does curing preserve food

So the neighbors started getting public officials involved. But in many parts of the world, this is not such an unusual sight.

Walking down a quiet street in Asia, you'll often happen on slightly macabre culinary set-pieces — long, thick slices of pork belly, draped over a clothes hanger, slabs of fish, or even, as I did once, a whole pig leg dangling next to a light post, hoof and all.

As unnerving as it sometimes is to come across, these al-fresco meat dryers are doing something that's been done for centuries, if not millennia: air-curing. When we stress about forgetting the chicken breasts on the counter for an afternoon, how is it possible to leave meat — in the Sun, no less — for days, eat it, and live to tell the tale? The key is moisture.

Inside a length of pork, or that whole pig leg, there's a race going on between bacteria and evaporation, with those hoping for a nice bit of ham for lunch egging the evaporation on. In China, pork sausages are also often dried in the air Credit: Getty Images. That process usually begins with salt.

Coating a piece of meat with salt draws the water within the tissue out to the surface, where it evaporates, in much the same way that salting a slice of aubergine or courgette will get rid of its excess water. At the same time, the salt makes the surface of the meat and some portion of the interior inhospitable to microscopic bacterial beasts. Meat preservation in general of meat from livestock , game , and poultry is the set of all treatment processes for preserving the properties, taste, texture, and color of raw, partially cooked, or cooked meats while keeping them edible and safe to consume.

Curing has been the dominant method of meat preservation for thousands of years, although modern developments like refrigeration and synthetic preservatives are now beginning to complement and supplant it. While meat preservation processes like curing were mainly developed in order to prevent disease and increase food security, the advent of modern preservation methods mean that in most developed countries today, curing is instead mainly practised for its cultural value and desirable impact on the texture and taste of food.

For lesser-developed countries , curing remains a key process in ensuring the viability of meat production, transport and access. Untreated meat decomposes rapidly if it is not preserved, at a speed that depends on several factors, including ambient humidity , temperature, and the presence of pathogens. Most meats cannot be kept at room temperature in excess of a few days without spoiling, even in winter. If kept in excess of this time, meat begins to change colour and exude a foul odour, indicating the decomposition of the food.

Ingestion of such spoiled meat can cause serious food poisonings, like botulism. While the short shelf life of fresh meat does not pose a significant problem when access to it is easy and supply is abundant, in times of scarcity and famine, or when the meat must be carried over long voyages, it spoils very quickly. In such circumstances the usefulness of preserving foods containing nutritional value for transport and storage is obvious. The process of smoking gives the product the characteristic smoky flavor that can be varied slightly with cure recipes and types of smoke used.

A high concentration of salt promotes the formation of an unattractive gray color within some meat. Nitrate when used for some dry-cured, non-cooked meats is reduced to nitrite then to nitric oxide, which reacts with myoglobin muscle pigment to produce the red or pink cured color. If nitrite is used as the curing agent, there is no need for the nitrate reduction step, and the development of the cure color is much more rapid. The time required for a cured color to develop may be shortened with the use of cure accelerators, e.

Cure accelerators tend to speed up chemical conversion of nitric acid to nitric oxide. They also serve as oxygen scavengers, which slow the fading of the cured meat color in the presence of sunlight and oxygen. Some studies have indicated that cure accelerators have antimicrobial properties, especially for the newly emerging pathogens like E. Since cure accelerators are rarely used in home curing, this information needs further review or research to determine what benefits home curing would have by using certain cure accelerators.

The cure ingredients can be rubbed on to the food surface, mixed into foods dry dry curing , or dissolved in water brine, wet, or pickle curing. In the latter processes, the food is submerged in the brine until completely covered.

With large cuts of meat, brine may also be injected into the muscle. The term pickle in curing has been used to mean any brine solution or a brine cure solution that has sugar added. Nitrite in Meat Epley et al. Safety of Cured Pork Products Cassens Cure Mixtures For the home food preserver, measuring small batches of cure for nitrites or nitrates would require an analytical scale that few consumers have access to. Some examples of commercially prepared cures include: 2.

Prague Powder 2 This mix is used for dry cured meats that require long weeks to months cures. Slice thinly and serve similar to prosciutto. What is Brining. Important Cooking Temperatures. Capillary Action in Plants.

What are inverted sugars. Toggle navigation Science of Cooking. Curing Foods. Key Words : Brining, Osmosis, Diffusion, Capillary Action , Depolymerization, Sarcomere On this page: Structure of Muscle Fiber, Scientific Basis for Brining, Comparison of Brining Solutions, Applications to Cooking, References, Glossary of Terms Curing food preservation In food preparation, curing refers to various preservation and flavoring processes, especially of meat or fish, by the addition of a combination of salt, sugar and either nitrate or nitrite.

Terminology Curing with salt and sugar may be called salting , salt-curing , sugar-curing or honey-curing. Chemical action of curing Salt inhibits the growth of spoilage-causing microorganisms by drawing water out of microbial cells through osmosis. History Historically, peoples around the world have cured meat, in order not to waste valuable food, and to insure against poor harvests or hunting seasons.

On Food and Cooking revised. New York, NY: Scribner, Bertolli, Paul. Cooking by Hand.