It is so inspiring to read your postings. You have a very direct way of expressing many important points about what natural taste is about -and why natural taste is often destroyed in a modern world where consumers are cried their ears full about "product safety" while their health is simultaneously destroyed by meat that has been stuffed with antibiotics, or various kinds of preservatives and because the slightly contaminating bacteria flora that serves to learn the organism how to build up resistance is eliminated because of overtly (and I would add: perverse) cleanliness.
I an personally in no doubt that one very important reason behind the good taste of traditional polish meat products (especially before 1989 when the polish meat industry was still not influenced by "western technology") is because there was a immensly rich wild bacteria flora in all of the meat processing factories.
I visited many of them just few years after the wall fell when they were still very "backwards" as compared with western standard, but boy oh boy did they often make products of an incomparable rich taste. This great traditional taste gradually became more bland and indifferent the more westernized and "clean" the facilities of producers became.
Today a growing number of consumers in Poland cries out (and event wants to pay) for "old style traditional" products. But it´s too late to turn back the clock; pig breeding methods have changed, fodder is more streamlined giving a blander and less nuanced taste and the diversity of wild bacteria in the slaughter houses and at the meat processors have been sorrowly reduced. Just to mention a few examples of how modern methods have destroyed the quality standards of the "good old days".
Still, the Poles are fortunately still a bit more erratic and haphazard in many ways (and I mean this as being a big advantage!) than compared with Germans, whose average meat products are becoming still more faceless and anonymous in taste.
Why...? Because everything is too damned clean and perfect in Germany. Individuallity has been sacrified for the sake of efficiency and "producty safety"
And the taste situation is even worse here in Denmark where we never had any deeply felt traditions for the art of sausage making, in wich the Germans excell despite the fact that their raw materials and the way they handle them makes many products as boring as a rainy november afternoon.... (Przepraszam! Wystarczy teraz z ta stara walka z Niemcami
)So, I am sure, Andrzej, that if I come over to Durham one day I will ask you for a piece of the sausage that you have made with the sage which the dog pissed on - I am sure it will have a more interesting taste
And for all other who read this: Remember that there should always be a litte truth in a joke!Now a question: for your Funghi Salami recipe you write Mold 600/starter culture (for the outside of the casing - right?)
But which starter culture do you use for the acidifying/fermentation process ?
Best Greetings and
Życzy ci miłego dnia!
because I would like to make aware that "high acidity" itself is not security enough. I have experienced factory made sliced pepperoni that were very sour and acidious but they turned mouldy after a week because water activity was too high. Or contrary: I have tasted many salami with a high pH that even after a long storage didn´t turn bad because they gradually dried out, leaving no place for contaminating bacteria.
