ABSTRACT
Throughout the preagricultural world, humans routinely found the need to devise and refine methods for preserving foods. Animal proteins, particularly animal flesh, posed a significant problem. Before humans learned to raise domestic animals for food, methods of obtaining animal flesh were erratic and unpredictable. Then, as today, the harvest of wild animals was largely a matter of luck and timing. Fisherman and hunters usually faced the dilemma of coming home either empty-handed or with far more food than they could consume all at one time. Even after the development of animal husbandry, the slaughter of a large animal or the seasonal need to kill off many animals before winter weather depleted their food supply left the herders with excess meat. Throughout the ages and throughout the world, humans developed a number of food preservation techniques to solve the problem. In America, the two most important methods were salt and smoke.
PRESERVING WITH SALT During the time of the development of American regional cuisines, salt was needed not only for seasonings of fresh foods but also more importantly for the essential task of preserving foods for future use. Extracted from seawater or mined from natural deposits in the earth, salt was one of America’s earliest most precious commodities.
