desiccation doesn’t cause cooking and
compaction of the tissue, relatively thick
pieces can be dried and reconstituted.
Salted Meats: Hams, Bacon, Corned Beef
Like drying, salting preserves meat by
depriving bacteria and molds of water. The
addition of salt — sodium chloride — to meat
creates such a high concentration of dissolved
sodium and chloride ions outside the microbes
that water inside their cells is drawn out, salt
is drawn in, and their cellular machinery is
disrupted. The microbes either die or slow
down drastically. The muscle cells too are
partly dehydrated and absorb salt. Traditional
cured meats, made by dry-salting or brining
large cuts for several days, are about 60%
moisture and 5–7% salt by weight. The
resulting hams (from pig legs), bacon (from
pig sides), corned beef (“corn” coming from
the English word for grains, including salt