Salt
Salting or curing draws moisture from the meat through a process of osmosis. Meat is cured with salt or sugar, or a combination of the two. Nitrates and nitrites are also often used to cure meat and contribute the characteristic pink color, as well as inhibition of Clostridium botulinum.
Read more about this topic: Food Preservation
Famous quotes containing the word salt:
“Today is made of yesterday, each time I steal
toward rites I do not know, waiting for the lost
ingredient, as if salt or money or even lust
would keep us calm and prove us whole at last.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?”
—Bible: New Testament Matthew 5:13.
From the Sermon on the Mount.
“In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that’s why you’re not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)