Salted fish, such as Kipper or dried and salted cod, is fish cured with dry salt and thus preserved for later eating. Drying or salting, either with dry salt or with brine, was the only widely available method of preserving fish until the 19th century. Dried fish and salted fish (or fish both dried and salted) are a staple of diets in the Azores, Caribbean, West Africa, North Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Southern China, Scandinavia, parts of Canada including Newfoundland, coastal Russia, and in the Arctic. Like other , it provides preserved animal protein even in the absence of refrigeration.
Method
Salting is the preservation of food with dry
edible salt.
[ "Historical Origins of Food Preservation." University of Georgia, National Center for Home Food Preservation. Accessed Mat 2012.] It is related to
pickling (preparing food with
brine, i.e. salty water), and is one of the oldest methods of preserving food.
Salt inhibits the growth of
by drawing water out of microbial cells through
osmosis. Concentrations of salt up to 20% are required to kill most species of unwanted
bacterium. Smoking, often used in the process of curing meat, adds chemicals to the surface of meat that reduce the concentration of salt required. Salting is used because most
bacteria,
fungi and other potentially pathogenic
cannot survive in a highly salty environment, due to the
Tonicity nature of salt. Any living cell in such an environment will become dehydrated through osmosis and die or become temporarily inactivated.
The water activity, aw, in a fish is defined as the ratio of the water vapour pressure in the flesh of the fish to the vapour pressure of pure water at the same temperature and pressure. It ranges between 0 and 1, and is a parameter that measures how available the water is in the flesh of the fish. Available water is necessary for the microbial and enzymatic reactions involved in spoilage. There are a number of techniques that have been or are used to tie up the available water or remove it by reducing the aw. Traditionally, techniques such as Stockfish, Salt-cured meat and Smoked fish have been used, and have been used for thousands of years. In more recent times, freeze-drying, water binding , and fully automated equipment with temperature and humidity control have been added. Often a combination of these techniques is used.[FAO: Preservation techniques Fisheries and aquaculture department, Rome. Updated 27 May 2005.]
Health effects
Due to the elevated levels of
Nitrite, consuming salted fish increases risk of
stomach cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer.
[ "Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer: A Global Perspective". wcrf.org. Retrieved 14 February 2023. "There is strong evidence, mostly from Asia, that consuming foods preserved by salting (including salt-preserved vegetables, fish and salt-preserved foods in general) is a cause of stomach cancer."][ "Meat, fish and dairy products and the risk of cancer". wcrf.org. Retrieved 14 February 2023.] The International Agency for Research on Cancer classify salted fish (Chinese-style) as a Group 1 carcinogen.
[ "Known and Probable Human Carcinogens". cancer.org. Retrieved 14 February 2023.][ "Agents classified by the IARC Monographs". monographs.iarc.who.int. Retrieved 14 February 2023.]
==Gallery==
, where cod dry in the sun before being packed in salt]]
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Salt House, where seawater was boiled to extract salt for preserving fish]]
bringing in fish and splitting them for salting]]
, England, used for pressing salted
into barrels for storage and export to the continent]]
, Germany]]
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See also
Notes
