Brining in the context of Flavoring

Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as rock salt or halite. Salt is essential for life in general (being the source of the essential dietary minerals sodium and chlorine), and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. Salt is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous food seasonings, and is known to uniformly improve the taste perception of food. Salting, brining, and pickling are ancient and important methods of food preservation.

Some of the earliest evidence of salt processing dates to around 6000 BC, when people living in the area of present-day Romania boiled spring water to extract salts; a salt works in China dates to approximately the same period. Salt was prized by the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Hittites, Egyptians, and Indians. Salt became an important article of trade and was transported by boat across the Mediterranean Sea, along specially built salt roads, and across the Sahara on camel caravans. The scarcity and universal need for salt have led nations to go to war over it and use it to raise tax revenues, for instance triggering the El Paso Salt War which took place in El Paso in the late 1860s. Salt is used in religious ceremonies and has other cultural and traditional significance.

Brine (or briny water) is a high-concentration solution of salt (typically sodium chloride or calcium chloride) in water. In diverse contexts, brine may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical concentration of seawater, on the lower end of that of solutions used for brining foods) up to about 26% (a typical saturated solution, depending on temperature). Brine forms naturally due to evaporation of ground saline water but it is also generated in the mining of sodium chloride. Brine is used for food processing and cooking (pickling and brining), for de-icing of roads and other structures, and in a number of technological processes. It is also a by-product of many industrial processes, such as desalination, so it requires wastewater treatment for proper disposal or further utilization (fresh water recovery).

Salting is the preservation of food with dry edible salt. It is related to pickling in general and more specifically to brining, also known as fermenting (preparing food with brine, that is, salty water), and is one form of curing. It is one of the oldest methods of preserving food, and two historically significant salt-cured foods are salted fish (usually dried and salted cod or salted herring) and salt-cured meat (such as bacon). Vegetables such as runner beans and cabbage are also often preserved in this manner.

Salting is used because most bacteria, fungi and other potentially pathogenic organisms cannot survive in a highly salty environment, due to the hypertonic nature of salt. Any living cell in such an environment will become dehydrated through osmosis and die or become temporarily inactivated. Fine grained salts were more expensive but also absorbed moisture faster than coarse salt.

In British and Irish cuisine, gammon is the hind leg of pork after it has been cured by dry-salting or brining, and may or may not be smoked. Strictly speaking, a gammon is the bottom end of a whole side of bacon (which includes the back leg); ham is just the back leg cured on its own. Like bacon it must be cooked before it can be eaten; in that sense gammon is comparable to fresh pork meat, and different from dry-cured ham like jamón serrano or prosciutto. The term is mostly used in the United Kingdom and Ireland; other dialects of English largely make no distinction between gammon and ham.

Ham hock, gammon hock, or knuckle, is the back end of the joint, and contains more connective tissue and sinew.

Marinating is the process of soaking foods in a seasoned, often acidic, liquid before cooking. This sauce, called the marinade, can be either acidic (made with ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice, or wine), or enzymatic (made with ingredients such as pineapple, papaya, yogurt, or ginger), or have a neutral pH. In addition to these ingredients, a marinade often contains oil, salt, herbs, and spices to further flavor the food items. It is commonly used to flavor foods and to tenderize tougher cuts of meat; the process may last seconds or days.

Marinating is similar to brining, except that brining relies on the action of salty brine rather than the action of acids or enzymes. Marinating is also similar to pickling, except that pickling is generally done for much longer periods of months or even years, primarily as a means of food preservation. Conversely, marinating is usually performed for a few hours to a day, generally as a means of enhancing the flavor of the food or tenderizing it.