...old cookbooks that indicate that meat should/could be hanged for days or weeks before use! That some meat was considered a delicacy when it had actually rotted a little?!!!!
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Ever watch the Travel channel programs “Bizarre Food with Andrew Zimmern”? Goes all over the world and shows how people obtain and prepare their food. ...A few nights ago he did a show about NYC and one piece was in the meat market that processes about 1 million pounds per year to supply restaurants everywhere.
After trimming sides of beef, they put some of the portions in a drying room, just wrapped in plastic and not frozen, where they age for 2-3 weeks. The bacteria breaks down the meat and tenderizes it. ....Andrew and the boss of the place were just cutting thin slices off and eating them raw.
Fish and wild game are also air dried in cool climates (not the tropics). ......Wouldn’t work here in Texas!
Interesting thread you started!
Only the last category does not lend very well to the traditional methods of drying meats. Western Texas is just fine. Having come from South Africa, I pretty regularly dry meat to make Biltong. Jerky is a pathetic joke next to Biltong. 10 to 20 lb of eye of round sliced into 1/2 inch thick strips with the grain, a lb of brown sugar, 5 cups of scorched rough ground coriander, a cup and a half of coarse non-iodized salt, and a half liter of vinegar as the ingredients... and two box fans some bungee cords and 5 or 6 cheap 20x20 furnace filters I guarantee there is not a habitable place in the US I could not make Biltong.
