Posted by Peter H on October 10, 2007 at 13:21:49 from 86.149.219.198 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: keeping food cool - back to basics posted by Elizabeth on October 10, 2007 at 02:52:19:
. . not directly on the subject of AR and his books . .
AR - who's he? Now to our topic. I previously mentioned the need for a bacteriologist. In fact, the preservation of meat is more a matter of chemistry. The modern method of ensuring that non-frozen meat reaching the consumer is fresh is to vacuum-seal it, usually with preservative additives, including an amount of water. When unwrapped, this meat should be kept cool and cooked fairly quickly. The old method was to age the meat – this allowed natural enzymes to breakdown the hard connective tissue and for water to evaporate away, concentrating the flavour (or flavor). If carried on long enough, the taste becomes intense, as in the dried meats of Italy. Ideally, the meat was hung, but smaller joints could be stored on a shelf with a constant flow of air round it – this apparently controlled bacteria. Of course, there was bacterial activity on the meat, but insufficient to kill anyone or even make them ill, plus the fact that people seem to have had stronger constitutions then. The two key factors were constancy in temperature, and judgment of time, as bacteriological activity would inevitably increase as time went by. Ideally, the temperature should not go below freezing nor above 36 degrees F. A well-built scullery might have maintained that temperature range, but would Peter Duck’s cave? Jock mentioned a draft of hot air - I reckon any incoming air would rapidly be cooled. Actually, I can't find any mention of Susan using fresh meat, so perhaps we really are off topic :-(