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:
“It is terrible to die of thirst on the ocean. Do you have to salt your truth so heavily that it no longer—quenches thirst?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Unquiet wanderer
Draw the Glasnevin coverlet anew
About your head till the dust stops your ear,
The time for you to taste of that salt breath
And listen at the corners has not come;
You had enough of sorrow before death—”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 5:13.