Curing

Curing is a family of food preservation and flavoring techniques, applied chiefly to meat, fish and some vegetables, that centers on the addition of salt to draw moisture out of the food by osmosis. By lowering the food's water potential, curing makes its interior inhospitable to the microorganisms that cause spoilage, and it is often combined with other techniques such as smoking, drying or the addition of nitrates and nitrites, producing foods from prosciutto and bacon to salt cod and gravlax. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/