Fermented meat is an important preservation process which has evolved for
meat
Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...
but is rarely used alone.
A particularly common form of
fermented
Fermentation is a metabolic process that produces chemical changes in organic substrates through the action of enzymes. In biochemistry, it is narrowly defined as the extraction of energy from carbohydrates in the absence of oxygen. In food ...
meat product is the
sausage
A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders.
...
, with notable examples including
chorizo
Chorizo (, from Spanish ; similar to but distinct from Portuguese ) is a type of pork cured meat originating from the Iberian Peninsula.
In Europe, chorizo is a fermented, cured, smoked meat, which may be sliced and eaten without cooking, or ...
,
salami
Salami ( ) is a cured sausage consisting of fermented and air-dried meat, typically pork. Historically, salami was popular among Southern, Eastern, and Central European peasants because it can be stored at room temperature for up to 45 days ...
,
sucuk,
pepperoni
Pepperoni is an American variety of spicy salami made from cured pork and beef seasoned with paprika or other chili pepper.
Prior to cooking, pepperoni is characteristically soft, slightly smoky, and bright red. Thinly sliced pepperoni is one ...
,
nem chua
Nem chua is a fermented pork dish from Vietnamese cuisine. It is mainly composed of a mixture of lean pork and thin strips of cooked rind, garnished with garlic and chilli. It can take the form of bite-size pieces wrapped individually in aluminu ...
,
som moo
''Naem'' ( th, แหนม, , also referred to as ''nham'', ''naem moo'', ''som moo'', ''naem maw'', ''chin som'') is a pork sausage in Lao cuisine, Laos and Thai cuisine, Thai. It is a Fermentation in food processing, fermented food that has a ...
, and
saucisson
Saucisson () or saucisson sec is a family of thick, dry-cured sausages in French cuisine. Typically made of pork, or a mixture of pork and other meats, saucisson are a type of charcuterie similar to salami or summer sausage.
Origin
Saucisso ...
.
The process of fermentation may be used to render edible meat that would otherwise be poisonous to humans, as in the case of the Icelandic dish
hákarl
is, Hákarl, label=none (an abbreviation of is, kæstur hákarl, label=none , referred to as fermented shark in English) is a national dish of Iceland consisting of a Greenland shark or other sleeper shark that has been cured with a particular ...
, the fermented meat of the Greenland shark.
In 2015, the
International Agency for Research on Cancer
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC; french: Centre International de Recherche sur le Cancer, CIRC) is an intergovernmental agency forming part of the World Health Organization of the United Nations.
Its role is to conduct and ...
of the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
classified
processed meat
Processed meat is considered to be any meat which has been modified in order to either improve its taste or to extend its shelf life. Methods of meat processing include salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, and/or the addition of chemical pre ...
, that is, meat that has undergone
salting,
curing, fermenting, or
smoking
Smoking is a practice in which a substance is burned and the resulting smoke is typically breathed in to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which have bee ...
, as "
carcinogenic
A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substan ...
to humans".
See also
*
Fermentation in food processing
In food processing, fermentation is the conversion of carbohydrates to alcohol or organic acids using microorganisms—yeasts or bacteria—under anaerobic (oxygen-free) conditions. Fermentation usually implies that the action of microorganism ...
References
{{Meat-stub
Animal-based fermented foods
Meat