Salt, Smoke and Air: Cured Meats and Sausages

Sausage is ground meat mixed with salt, spices and sometimes fillers, packed into a casing that was historically animal intestine. Sausage making is a traditional preservation technique, since sausages can be cured, dried, smoked or frozen, and Homer already mentioned blood sausages.

Salami is fermented and air-dried meat, typically pork. It was valued because it kept at room temperature once cut, which let peasants in Southern, Eastern and Central Europe stretch an uncertain supply of fresh meat. The name comes from the Italian plural salame, from sale, salt.

Chorizo is a pork sausage that began on the Iberian Peninsula. Spanish and Portuguese versions are cured and smoked, with color and smokiness from dried red peppers and paprika, while Mexican chorizo uses fresh chilies and must be cooked before eating.

Bacon is salt-cured pork, usually from the belly or back. It is cured by wet curing in brine or by dry curing with salt, and may then be dried, smoked or boiled. The first commercial bacon plant opened in Calne, Wiltshire, in the 1770s under John Harris.

Ham is pork from the leg preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking. Cato the Elder described ham curing around 160 BC, and Roman sources record a trade in ham from Gaul, so this is among the oldest cured meats on the path.

Prosciutto is Italian dry-cured ham, uncooked and unsmoked and served thinly sliced. Prosciutto di Parma and Prosciutto di San Daniele both hold protected designation of origin. The Italian word covers any ham, so English usage narrows it to the dry-cured kind.

Pastrami is a cured meat of Jewish-American cuisine that began in the Jewish community of Romania. It is brined, seasoned with spices such as coriander, black pepper and mustard seed, then smoked and steamed. Immigrants in New York adapted a goose-based recipe to cheaper beef brisket.

Lard is the fat rendered from pig tissue, distinct from tallow, which comes from cattle or sheep. It was long a primary cooking fat, remains valued in sausages and pates, and gives especially flaky pastry crusts, which closes the path with the fat behind so much of this meat.