Potting (Food Preservation)

Potting is a food preservation technique that predates modern refrigeration, in which hot cooked meat is packed tightly into a pot to exclude air and then covered with hot fat, typically butter. As the fat cools and solidifies, it forms an airtight seal over the meat that inhibits spoilage from airborne microorganisms. The technique offered a practical way to extend the usable life of meat from an animal that had just been slaughtered when more meat was available than could be eaten immediately; some traditional recipes potted meat from a single animal, while regional variations such as the Flemish dish potjevleesch combined meat from more than one kind of animal. By modern food safety standards, potting carries a real hazard, because spores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum can survive cooking temperatures of 100 degrees Celsius and, in the airless, near-neutral pH environment created by the fat seal, can germinate and produce the toxins that cause botulism.