How do you preserve meat in the old days?
By gxnfly
@gxnfly (1147)
China
May 14, 2008 3:02am CST
Meat is kept fresh by storing it in refrigerators nowadays. The question is do you still know the old trick for keeping meats?What did people do to preserve meat in your place?
We had many ways of keeping meat fresh in the old days. For example, it can be rubbed with salt or can be dried or smoked. These ways were popular before the refrigerator was invented, and they are also used today to get a special flavor in some places of China.
3 people like this
8 responses
@lilaclady (28207)
• Australia
14 May 08
Thats a very good question, I have seen things called a meat safe which is a tin cabinet that used to be hung from the ceiling, I have often wondered is this where they used to store meat and how long would that last, not long I would imagine...
@augustine87 (173)
• Philippines
14 May 08
By adding different spices to it and drying it in the sun. The flavor is good. =D
2 people like this
@peavey (16936)
• United States
14 May 08
Another thing they used to do (at least in the US), was to cook meat and layer it with rendered fat. Pork, especially, kept well that way in the winter. It didn't have to be frozen, but was kept cool enough to keep the fat solid.
Dried meat, as in jerky, was common, as was salted (salt pork, salted herring, etc.) and smoked meats were also. Common people didn't always eat meat every day, though.
2 people like this
@sudiptacallingu (10879)
• India
14 May 08
Most definitely salt was used to preserve meat in old days. As it is in my country India, most people are vegetarians and the meat lovers either have the meat fresh on a daily basis or if it had to be preserved, salt was rubbed. It also added a nice flavour to the meat.
2 people like this
@karadiablo (313)
• United States
14 May 08
Also people canned meat, and pickled it with spices and vinegar.
2 people like this
@julyteen (13252)
• Davao, Philippines
16 May 08
what we did last time together with my mom and dad was dried it under the sun. i love the meat of horse when it is dried, i won't eat horse meat if it is not dried. some meat like goat, deer and pig my mom mixed it with salt to preserve similar to fish.
