flavors you find in preserved meats from around the
world. In France, it’s called charcuterie. In Italy, it’s
salumi (incidentally, salami is a specific type of
salumi). Whatever you want to call it, it’s the craft
of preserving meat—of taking those bits that nobody
really wanted to eat and turning them into the best-
tasting stuff around. In this book, I’ve included
recipes for the simplest form of curing, letting meat
and salt mingle overnight—and you’ll be amazed at
the transformation that meat undergoes in even that
short amount of time. But the world of curing goes
far beyond the scope of these recipes. Here’s quick
overview of what you’ll find out there:
- Chemical cures involve the use of salt, sugar,
nitrates, and/or nitrites. The idea is that by
adding a high-enough concentration of these
chemicals (yep, salt and sugar are chemicals),
you create an environment that is inhospitable to
bacterial growth. Salt and sugar we know about.
As for the other two, sodium nitrate and
potassium nitrate both break down into nitrites
as a sausage ages, and these nitrites prevent the
growth of certain types of bacteria (mainly the
botulism-causing bacteria Clostridium
botulinum). They play an important role in
flavor development as well as helping cured
meats to retain a pink hue even after being
cooked. Their effect on human health is debated,
but it’s probably a good idea to keep your intake