Cured Meats

Curing is how meat was kept before the freezer: salt pulls the water out, drying finishes the job, and the result hangs in a cool room for weeks or months. The modern store has three kinds that go by one name: dry-cured meats like salami, prosciutto and country ham, which keep without refrigeration while whole; cooked and brined meats like city ham, hot dogs and deli slices, which are fridge foods; and bacon, which is cured but still raw and keeps a week. Know which you have before you plan on it.

For the shelf: whole dry salami and whole dry-cured hams, bought uncut with the casing or rind intact, and canned ham, which is shelf-stable for two years unopened. Read the label: anything that says keep refrigerated is the second kind. For the fridge and freezer: bacon, cooked ham and sausage as you use them. Jerky is the dry route and has its own page.

Whole dry-cured meat hangs or sits in a cool, dry, airy place, wrapped in paper or a cloth bag, never plastic, which traps moisture and grows the wrong mold. Once cut, the cut face is the weak point: press paper against it and refrigerate. Sliced cured meat is a fridge food from the first slice. Canned ham sits on the pantry shelf like any can. Bacon in the fridge in its pack, or frozen in portions.

The white powdery mold on the casing of a dry salami is the cure working and wipes off. Fuzzy green, black or blue mold, especially on a cut face, means trimming deep or discarding. Slime, a sour or rancid smell, and a gray or green tint on the meat itself are the end. A country ham may show mold on the rind, which is scrubbed off with a stiff brush and vinegar before cooking; the meat under it's fine.

Cured meat is dense: a pound of dry salami is about 1,800 calories and a lot of salt, which is why a little goes a long way with bread, beans and rice. Country ham is soaked overnight to pull salt before cooking. To cure your own, a pork belly with 2.5 percent of its weight in salt plus a measured curing salt, rubbed and refrigerated for a week, then rinsed and cooked or smoked, is bacon; the long dry cures need a cool, humid room and a scale, and the curing formulas are where the amounts live.

Whole dry-cured meat and canned ham do not care about an outage. Sliced cured meat, cooked ham, hot dogs and bacon are fridge foods and follow the two-hour rule above 40°F; cook the bacon and eat the ham in the first day.

Shelf-life figures are from the Survival Foods field guide; fridge, freezer and pantry times are from the USDA cold and pantry storage charts. Run the look, smell, taste check before eating anything past its date.