How do our dry-cured sausages dry?
Why are our dry-cured sausages so good?
Because we don't rush our dry-cured sausages! We give them time... Time to dry slowly, to mature, to develop all their aromas!
But why this choice of "slowness", quite anachronistic, in a world increasingly addicted to speed?
Originally, over 20 years ago now, the takeover of our curing facility was the result of a true love at first sight for these dry-cured sausages that we discovered in an Ardèche shop. They smelled good, looked good, and tasted extraordinary. The gentleman who made the dry-cured sausages retired but passed on all his know-how to us. We then chose to keep his recipe and his precious expertise while expanding our production capacity. His secret was, among other things, a much longer and gentler sausage drying process than most sausages found on the market.
A quick reminder about food preservation...
To preserve food, there are various methods, all of which aim to neutralize microorganisms, especially pathogenic ones (harmful to health, likely to cause food poisoning, for example) that thrive by feeding on fresh food, leading to putrefaction.
Therefore, conditions must be created where life is no longer possible for these microorganisms. To do this, we try to eliminate at least one of the three factors essential for life: water, energy (heat), and oxygen.
The oldest methods, called natural or traditional, were developed when no technology existed. They are based on water deprivation: air drying (meat, dried fish, dried fruit, etc.), salting (for example, in salted cod, salt draws out water, which is then no longer available to microorganisms and has a bacteriostatic effect) and sugaring (for example, jams, candied fruits - and yes! sugar also draws out water).
Fermentation is also a traditional process that involves modifying the initial environment to make it unusable by microorganisms, often by acidifying it. Grape juice is fermented into wine, milk into cheese. Are you following?
More recent technologies neutralize microorganisms by heat (pasteurized, sterilized milk, canned goods), remove energy by cold (refrigeration, freezing), oxygen with modified atmosphere foods, and use additives (preservatives, antioxidants). Other processes combine several of these technologies.
Let's get back to drying dry-cured sausages!
In the curing process, raw meat is salted, fermented, then dried: these are the three oldest preservation methods. If the drying is long and gentle, the meat (especially the fat) has time to transform and release all its aromas. No need for spices in sausages to hide the defects of a too-rapid drying technology!
For the drying of our dry-cured sausages, just salt, pepper, a little Ardèche red wine from the neighboring cellar, and the good air of Ardèche – that's the traditional local recipe.
Of course, we are no longer in the Stone Age. We can now control the fermentation and drying of dry-cured sausages with selected temperatures and humidity in our drying rooms. But everything is long and gentle with us. Fermentation, drying which lasts from 5 to 7 weeks, varying according to the diameter of the dry-cured sausages (obviously, the thinner they are, the faster they dry!).
The natural mold has all the time it needs to develop... The climate and pure air of Ardèche also contribute. This mold, which grows on natural casings, slows down drying and gives off aromas of undergrowth and mushrooms, which influences the final taste of the dry-cured sausages. In the past, when it was very abundant after a particularly humid period, the old Ardèche people called it "la bourre" (fuzz).
And nitrites in all this?
It must be the thorny question of the day: saltpeter (or potassium nitrate) and its derivatives, nitrated salts, have always been used in sausage making to, among other things, inhibit bad bacteria. In our opinion, it would be dangerous not to use them!
Our very long drying process for dry-cured sausages significantly reduces their presence in the finished product you consume (about 3 times less than the residual dose allowed by regulations). In other words, they are present only in trace amounts in our sausages.
It's also important to know that a sausage is a product "subject to desiccation" as the legislation states, meaning: the older it gets, the drier it will be. During drying, it loses water and thus becomes lighter. Consequently, an "old," very dry sausage might not be very pleasant for your teeth, but it won't make you sick. Sausage is truly very resilient, and that's probably why we've been eating it for so long!
And bon appétit!
