Air-Cured Meat
Air-curing is an ancient process of preserving meat, that concentrates and transforms the meat's flavors.
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When air-curing meat, the composition of the fat in the meat is critical. Although monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are both healthy (because they are unsaturated), polyunsaturated fats go rancid quickly, turning yellow and creating off flavors. That is unsuitable for cured products. Polyunsaturated fat goes rancid even when cold or frozen.
In contrast, monounsaturated fat doesn't spoil quickly, and tends to produce pleasant aromas as it cures. The Mangalitsa and related unimproved breeds tend to produce more monounsaturated fat than modern breeds, and when fed a special diet, can produce even more. We finish all our Mangalitsa on this kind of special diet.
The difference in fat composition explains why duck cures so much better than chicken: duck has more monounsaturated fat, while chicken has too much polyunsaturated fat.
Because of the Mangalitsa's first-class marbling and special fat composition, it is very suited for long curing. Hungarian, Italian and Spanish companies make very high-quality air-cured products like salami from Mangalitsa.
Brine-Injected and Hot Smoked
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These days, people normally do a quick wet cure and hot smoke with our modern lean pork. One injects the pork with brine and smokes it at a high temperature it, producing our modern version of "ham" and "bacon" - which is very different from the original product.
Getting technical, the modern ham is called "city ham", while the traditional product, described below, is "country ham."
The modern stuff isn't shelf-stable - it will not keep at room temperature. Refrigeration makes that unnecessary, explaining why salt pork and "country ham" aren't staples anymore.
Traditional Curing
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Traditional curing is a different process. Essentially, salts of various kinds (perhaps including nitrites or nitrates) enter the meat (via a rub or a soak), killing bacteria. The meat is optionally cold-smoked. Then the meat dehydrates for months.
When the meat is rubbed with salt and left to sit, that's dry-curing. When the meat is submerged in a brine, that's wet-curing. There's also a combination technique: mixed curing.
The key innovation of the modern method over the older methods is that the meat is injected with the brine - a step that radically speeds things up.
After the meat is cured, it is hung to dry it out. The dehydration and other chemical reactions that happen during that time develop the flavor and inhibit bacteria growth, resulting in a product that keeps at room temperature and has intense flavors.
As the photos above illustrate, and as your nose and tongue will tell you, pork cured the modern way, versus pork cured the traditional way are very different.
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Americans may be surprised to know that Austrians air-cure many cuts of pork: fatback, loin, belly, shoulder, ham. In some regions, they traditionally air-cure entire half-hogs.
Mangalitsa producers typically wet-cure their meat and then hang it to dry a few months. They repoprt that wet-curing is generally simpler, less labor-intensive and less error-prone than dry-curing.
To make the best air-cured products, the Austrian farmers and food scientists advise considering the breed, feed and raising, slaughter, hygiene and aging, as they impact the quality of the meat and resulting products.
One comprehensive Austrian book is Dr. Franz S. Wagner's (in German), shown on the right. An expert in food science and traditional Austrian specialties, he covers the history, theory and practice of making cured products.
Wooly Pigs and Our Cured Meat
We produce a few cured products: ham, bacon and smoked sausage. All these are made with modern methods. We'd prefer to do more traditional products, but there are no small USDA processors that we can work with to produce them. Nevertheless, many folks love our cured products and say they are the best they've had.
Next: Austrian Approach to Meat Quality
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