Preservation of meat

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Preservation of meat

    The next chapter in our Norwegian Food Culture course was about the preservation of meat. We prepared the topic in our literature seminars and then we worked together in the teaching kitchen and tried out some methods during the practical sessions. For example, we cured lamb meat, prepared different kinds of sausages, made lamb roll, and brawn.

In Amy C. Brown's book Understanding Food: Principles and Preparation, there is a whole chapter about Food Preservation. According to this chapter, meat preservation encompasses several techniques aimed at extending its shelf life. Drying, one of the oldest methods, removes moisture from the meat, limiting microbial growth. Another common approach, salting, binds moisture within the meat, creating an environment less conducive to bacterial growth. Additionally, smoking both reduces moisture and imparts unique flavors to the meat. (Brown, 2019, pp. 540-554) Henry Notaker says the following about this topic in his book Food Culture in Scandinavia: "When meat is dried, salted, or smoked, a curing process called speking may take place. This means that certain enzymes start a hydrolysis of the protein molecules. The texture is transformed, so that the food will be easier to chew and new tastes are developed. The result is that the food may be eaten "raw", that is, without any further culinary preparation." (Notaker, 2009, pp. 56) 

Our assignment for this blog post was excatly this, to preserve a meat product in this way. Franzi and I worked together, and we decided to make a simple salami. We chose a hungarian salami recipe that she found on a german website, which provided a detailed description of how to prepare the meat and what specific details we need to pay attention to. (Frech, 2021). So, a german and a hungarian girl worked together in Norway, and made a hungarian salami based on a recipe from a german website, and now you can read about this in english.:) Such a multinational project, let's see!


Ingredients

  • 325 g pork
  • 175 g fat
  • 13 g salt
  • 2,5 g pepper
  • 5 g sweet paprika
  • 1,5 g cayenne pepper
  • 1,5 g sugar
  • 5 g fresh garlic

Before starting the process, we put the meat and fat in the freezer to make it easier to work with later. Then we prepared the meat grinder/sausage stuffer (2in1). Furthermore, we thoroughly rinsed the casings that we would later stuff with the meat.

Except for the salt, we measured out all the spices, chopped the garlic, and mixed everything together. We thoroughly combined our spice mixture with the cold meat and fat. We ground this mixture twice. Since we were working with a small amount of meat and the kitchen was pleasantly warm, our meat mixture quickly warmed up, becoming sticky so it was difficult to work with. After grinding, we added the salt to the mixture.

mixing
photos by Anna

grinding
photos by Anna

Following the grinding, we rebuild the machine. We pulled the casings onto the nozzle of the sausage stuffer, and we were ready to start stuffing! Again, since we were working with a small amount of meat, we faced some difficulties because most of the meat mixture got stuck in the machine. As a result, we filled half of our sausages by hand, which was quite time-consuming, but fun, and at least we can say that we didn’t waste anything and used all the meat! 

preparation for stuffing
photos by Franziska

at the end handmade stuffing
photos by Jekabs

We ended up with a couple of adorable sausages. As a final step, we took them to a very secret place, where they can hang out peacefully with some of their buddies until the end of the semester. :)
For the final results we have to wait until the sausage has had enough time to hang and reach its perfect condition. We'll check them soon to see how it turns out!

finished sausages
photos by Franziska&Anna

final step
photos by Anna


Concluding thoughts

my brother and I last year
photo by probably our dad
I have participated in sausage stuffing events with my family many times before, as my dad is from the countryside, and we have kept this tradition. We usually gather for sausage stuffing in January because it has traditionally been done at this time to ensure it’s cold enough so the meat doesn’t spoil during processing. My memories of family sausage stuffings involve many members of my large family gathering in my grandmother's outdoor kitchen, freezing as we work together with huge bowls of raw meat by hand. 

It was very exciting to experience all of this now, with me in charge, in another country, in a completely different environment, stuffing sausages in a warm and sterile space. It was a great experience, and I hope to participate in many more sausage stuffings throughout my life, maintaining this tradition as a shared activity. For me, it’s now much more about the time spent together rather than the final product.



Bibliography
Brown, A. C. (2019). Food preservation. In Understanding food: Principles and preparation (pp. 540-554). Cengage.
Notaker, H. (2009). Major Foods and Ingredients. In Food culture in Scandinavia (pp. 45-79). Greenwood Press.






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