ABSTRACT
Drying and fermentation of meat is one of the oldest ways for meat preservation and these two processes cannot be separated in practice. Also, thousands of years ago, it was found that the shelf life of meats was rather extended if the meat was mixed with salt and aromatic herbs and then dried (Ordonez and de la Hoz 2007). Nowadays, the basic principles have not changed and a number of different fermented meat products are produced worldwide. The most famous products arising for these technologies are dry-fermented sausages and dry-cured hams. They have undergone a long ripening (aging) process, where complicated biochemical, proteolytic and lipolytic modifications take place, and which in turn are responsible for the distinctive flavors of these products. Drymeat products provide a large added value to the producer because they are regarded as high quality products. The quality of dry-meat products is related to both the quality of raw materials (meat and fat tissue) and the control of complex biochemical reactions which take place during processing (Gandemer 2002).
