Tim Hayward - Charcuterie: Slow Down, Salt, Dry and Cure

Why do we have to steal a French word for such an important part of our cuisine? We dont actually have an English word for charcuterie in fact come to think of it, there isnt an English word for cuisine but charcuteries root is in chair, meaning flesh and cuit meaning cooked. A charcutier prepares and sells cooked and cured meats, particularly pork.

Charcuterie happens all over the world and is fundamentally about preserving. In cultures where the pig is eaten, its about slaughtering the animal at the end of autumn, when its fattest and before it starts to consume its own stocks of fat, and then preparing as much of the meat as possible to carry the family through the winter. For the millennia before refrigeration and freezing, this was done by a variety of methods, all of which have the same objective, in modern scientific terms to make food into a hostile environment for harmful bacteria. Most of the organisms that cause decomposition require moisture, air and warmth to prosper. They will die if over-heated i.e. cooked or outside a quite narrow range of acidity/alkalinity.

Many of these techniques are older than history and have been passed on orally until very recently, but they are still based on this fundamental science. Farm workers and agricultural families who dealt with the initial preservation of meat were almost never literate and recipes passed by word of mouth. This is why, in the UK, for example, there are hundreds of different regional cures for bacon or ham, dry and wet brines with all kinds of additional ingredients, but all of which simply raise the salinity of the meat higher than bacteria can survive.

Sea captains and naval officers, however, could often read and write well. In Cambridge University Library, where I researched this book, there are few recipes for pork salting from farms, but a vast collection of seafarers logbooks, detailing the precise recipes by which meat was preserved for long voyages.

These days we have excellent refrigeration, from the point at which an animal is slaughtered, through chilled delivery trucks to fridges at the grocery store cabinets, right into the fridges in our own kitchens. We dont need to preserve food for survival, but we still do it for the amazing flavours and textures that these techniques can impart.

Theres quite marvellous charcuterie to be had from your local artisan butcher, from the deli or even, at a pinch, from the grocery store, so nobody is suggesting that you cure your own bacon every autumn or make sausages once a month for the rest of your life. But just once is enough to make the connection; to understand bacon and its history, to appreciate salami and its cultural significance in a far deeper way than from the glib rubric on the back of the packet.

Across much of the world, home preserving is a way of life. Hunting doesnt have the same aristocratic connotations as it has in the UK and is enjoyed by all sorts of people. In the USA and Europe recreational hunters are used to butchering their kill, smoking, drying or otherwise preserving it, often in a suburban garage with equipment bought from a local hardware store. While in the UK, air-drying a ham might be considered either an obscure hobby or something left to specialists, in Italy or Tennessee youre just as likely to find one hanging in the garden shed as a bike or a lawnmower.

Whats most noticeable is that in other food cultures, these exercises in preserving are not seen as the weird pursuits of a food freak, but just part of the seasonal duties of the household.

Its vital we understand the food we eat, where its from and how its altered before we consume it. In modern life we have to consume food thats been passed through various processes, industrial or otherwise we need to understand those processes to make informed choices. Its empowering to understand how something works even if you choose never to put that knowledge into action.

Of course, you might get bitten. Alongside artisan bakers, microbrewers and cheesemongers, there are now nouveau charcutiers, selling through craft butchers, to restaurants and at farmers markets all over the country, who have rediscovered these techniques and used them to change their lives. But, to begin with, at least, lets just acknowledge that, in a strange geeky way, some of these skills are a pleasure in themselves and worth trying if only once.

Most of us, at some time, will have experienced what happens to a piece of meat when its left unattended for too long. Decay is not something that youre likely to forget. Preserving is the art of managing decay, so its worth looking at what happens in animal flesh during slaughter and afterwards. The meat we eat is largely composed of muscle along with some fat, connective tissue and other bits. Animal muscle operates by burning oxygen, supplied from the lungs by the circulatory system, and turning it into movement. As with any chemical reaction there are waste products, in this case lactic acid, which can build up in the muscles until it is carried away, also by the circulatory system, to be excreted.

If you run, or work out at a gym, you may be aware of the burn that occurs in a freshly worked muscle as the lactic acid builds up and begins to attack it provoking a feeling of irritation or pain. When an animal is slaughtered, the circulatory system immediately stops and lactic acid can no longer be flushed from the muscles. If an animal has been in a state of muscular tension prior to death (and that can mean standing and moving rather than asleep), then the resulting, built-up lactic acid will continue to attack the muscles and connective tissue.

Take, then, a piece of well-shot game or a cleanly slaughtered cow, hang it somewhere thats not freezing, and it will, without any further intervention, begin to break down its own fibres. This process, sometimes called hanging or ageing, is used in a controlled way to make meat more tender in texture and to develop flavour.

As the lactic acid begins to break down cells in the tissue, enzymes are released that also attack or consume surrounding tissue, a process called autolysis. At the same time bacteria will establish a hold on the meat, usually at the surface, followed by other organisms, from moulds and fungi to insects. As this process continues, with the meat being consumed from within and by outside agents, we begin to experience the signs we interpret as rot, festering, decay or putrefaction.

Home-curers have a complex relationship with mould. It can be the first sign of spoilage or the vital ingredient in successful preservation. Gardeners define a weed as any plant thats growing in the wrong place, and we could probably look at moulds the same way.

Moulds are fungi and come in two forms. Some grow as multi-cellular strings, or hyphae, which gives the characteristic furry appearance. Others are single-cell types, which we call yeasts so we couldnt have bread, beer, cheese, soy sauce or any one of a million other food products without mould. That doesnt help, though, when your bacon has grown fur and youre wondering whether its safe to eat.