On Food and Cooking

spoilage has been a major challenge
throughout human history. The earliest
methods, which go back at least 4,000 years,
were physical and chemical treatments that
make meat inhospitable to microbes. Drying
meat in the sun and wind or by the fire
removes enough water to halt bacterial
growth. A smoky fire deposits cell-killing
chemicals on the meat surface. Heavy salting
— with partly evaporated seawater, or rock
salt, or the ashes of salt-concentrating plants
— also draws vital moisture from cells.
Moderate salting permits the growth of a few
hardy and harmless microbes that help
exclude harmful ones. Out of these crude
methods to stave off spoilage have come some
of our most complex and interesting foods,
the dry-cured hams and fermented sausages.
The Industrial Revolution brought a new
approach: preserve meat not by changing the
meat itself, but by controlling its
environment. Canning encloses cooked meat