And as agribusiness diminishes the quality of our meat and food producers speed up the curing process, home curing can bring back the flavor and texture of old.
Michael Ruhlman, an American author of an excellent book on home curing, complains that "the problem is the government has no real knowledge of how this works".
Introduced to the American continents by the first European settlers, it became a favoured food on the farms of North America, where home curing of hams became an elaborate tradition of the late fall and winter months.
A traditional breakfast is cooked on the Aga and taken in the kitchen on the pine table, where the Braders' own home cured hams and bacon hang.
It proved to be the perfect place for his terrible purpose of killing scores of patients - almost all middle-aged or elderly women - while sending others home cured, amid mutual bonhomie and heartfelt thanks.
We began with a excellent plate of home cured meats: tender wind-dried ham and beef, chorizo, salted loin of pork, tetilla cheese and tasty paper-thin marbled slices of something unidentifiable.
In the home, cured or smoked meats and sausages, olives, salted anchovies, sardines, fresh or pickled vegetables, shellfish, peppers, and cheeses are favoured, while restaurant presentations add to these elaborate prepared dishes such as seafood salads, stuffed mushrooms, vitello tonnato (cold braised veal in tuna mayonnaise), and the like.
Busy day ahead so it's a quick breakfast of stir-fried zucchini topped with home cured Alaskan Salmon.
For starters, there are options like Colchester oysters dressed with apple, samphire, lemon and mirin (my choice); a Game terrine with wood pigeon, rabbit, partridge, pheasant, foie grass, pancetta, pistachio, red onion and cranberry and a Foie gras parfait with home cured duck breast, redcurrant dressing, 'Melba' pain brioche and red sorrel cress.
Sensational home-cured smoked bacon or their fondness for Barwheys, a rich, pungent artisan Ayrshire cheese, are evidence of their past in fastidious, Michelin-starred dining.
She undertook a regime of swimming and bicycling, as well as home cures, and detailed some of her ideas in Eczema and Food Allergy: The Hidden Cause?
