I have written almost a dozen introductions for this part of the book. Some long, some short. Some direct, some oblique. All of these earlier drafts seemed too serious for the text, and maybe this one is, too. Curing and smoking meats, fish, and game at home ought to be fun, and the results ought to be culinary delights, or at least be a welcome change from supermarket fare. In order to cure and cold-smoke meat safely, however, salt is required. Lots of salt.
Unfortunately, salt has become a bad word in the culinary and health-food trade. The trend these days is for writers, TV reporters, and marketing experts to pussy-foot around the issue or to capitalize on it by treating salt in the negative. As a result, a lot of modern people suffer from what I call salphobia. I wrestle a round or two with this problem in chapter 1, The Salt Imperative (page 262), because I feel obliged to do so to the best of my ability. At this point, I want to say two things: In the short term, skimping on the salt used for home-cured and-smoked meats and fish can be very dangerous to your health; indeed, an unsalted turkey put into an electric smoker during windy or cold weather, along with a pan of water to keep the moisture up, can be a veritable salmonella factory. In the long term, cutting out salt-cured and home-preserved meats has brought us to rely more and more on supermarket fare. Read the newspapers. People die of food poisoning. Chicken has become a toxic substance. We are told to cook everything until well done, even prime T-bone beefsteak. We are told to wash our hands thoroughly after handling meat. We are told to spray the countertop with antibacterial cleaners. The situation is so bad that we hear more and more about zapping supermarket foods with radiation. Safely, we are told. Our “cured” hams are already embalmed with water and chemicals. Safely, we are told.
But all this is heavy stuff. I don’t want to clutter my mind with it, and I resent having to burden this book with it. Consequently, I have decided to front the issue in chapter 1 and get it out of the way. Then I’ll get on with some hopefully enjoyable information about curing and smoking meats at home, along with definitions and nuts-and-bolts how-to text on such topics as cold-smoking, hot-smoking, salt-curing, sugar-curing, and so on.
But what if I am wrong about salt? Well, in that case, I’ll have to recall a spirited discussion that I once had with a fun-loving doctor who made some money and took it to Alaska. The gist of the conversation was that society simply can’t afford to keep people alive forever, a matter that our politicians will have to face sooner or later. The good doctor’s solution was that everybody should be issued a book of tickets. When all the tickets are gone, he said, that’s it. Well, it seems to me an equitable way to run things, giving a break to people who die accidentally in their youth, or in war, and punishing those of us who tend to burn the candle at both ends. In any case, when the new deal goes into effect, I’ll surely spend two tickets, if necessary, on a Virginia ham.