"cybercat" > wrote:
>
> Why return to the hams of your technologically impoverished forbears?

Because sometimes traditional equals good. Consider wine.

> Do you think they LIKED all that salt?

Humans have a metabolic need for salt. Avoid it thoroughly
enough, cravings for it grow. Keep avoiding it and you get
ill. It's part of why so much modern food is over salted. So
yes I do think they liked salt. I also think they soaked hams
to reduce the salt level so to some degree I see your
aversion to salt as out of the average but not extremely rare.

> IT WAS THE ONLY WAY THEY HAD TO PRESERVE MEAT.

A Thai restaurant near me offers pork jerky. I bought some
and tried it. Good but too much sugar for my tastes. Dried
so completely it could be powdered for pemmican. Almost
all commercial brands of jerky made from other critters have
too much sugar to me so this stuff at almost candied was
way past what I expect from jerky.

Drying, salting, sugaring, immersing in fat (usually comfee'
style duck or goose rendered fat) that has to be melted off
before eating. Luktefisk is fermented. Soaked in brandy.
Pickled in vinegar. Among those I hadn't had luktefisk and
I thought brandied chicken was nasty.

The oldest preservation method there is is also a way to
improve the flavor. It's a trick that's been in use for about
two million years - cooking. It's not as effective as those
other methods for longevity but it's better than just sitting
out in the wild raw.

Canned meat? In my desk is a can of Hormel beef marked
"Product of Argentina". I keep it in case I need to work
through the evening. I consider it a hard ration in the sense
that i'm not tempted to eat it under ordinary cirumstances
but I won't hestitate in an emergency. At times I've had a
can of Spam in my desk as a hard ration but I discovered I
would rather wait until the work was over and seek out a
24/7 place on the way home rather than eat it - No hot plate
at the office and I really only eat Spam hot off the griddle.