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:
“Of all the flavors one eats, salt is indispensable; wherever one goes in the world, one’s mother is dearest.”
—Chinese proverb.
“The salt person and blasted place
I furnish with the meat of a fable;
If the dead starve, their stomachs turn to tumble
An upright man in the antipodes
Or spray-based and rock-chested sea:
Over the past table I repeat this present grace.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Matthew, 5:13.
From the Sermon on the Mount.