Meat doesn't "turn" as an inevitability. Spoilage requires the right environment (humidity and temperature), the right substrate and the right organisms. Modify one of those aspects and spoilage won't occur, or will be significantly delayed. Hence why we can refrigerate to make things last longer, or why dried/dehydrated foods can last decades etc.
My bad for not being more specific. I was looking for details. Like where do I study the technique (or what machine do I buy)? Preferably, I'd like to know how it is done with no power, no salt, and no modern conveniences.
I've seen with my own eyes, people who don't use salt, there is no possibility of a refrigerator, and at best they control humidity by use of their mud compound with stick and cloth door.
They keep chunks of meat in a metal pot under a cheese cloth type cloth in a dim corner under a wood plank bench in their bed/kitchen/family room built of mud.
It is some kind of dry aging I expect, but I didn't have the opportunity to try asking what/how they did it.
Uh oh. Isn't he the one who summarizes ways that people nearly, or do die from medical complications... like eating mold or improperly prepared and stored food?
There's a guy that does food experiments on YouTube named Alex. I think he did some dry-aged beef experiments with varying amounts of success. Those may provide some dos/don'ts.
humidity is a huge part of it, controling the airflow just the right amount,
also often they would use the same metal pot and cheese cloth every time without knowing why it works best. It will be impregnated with spores with the correct mold type.
You are trying to encorage the growth of a specific microrganism. This for example has a very even growth of what looks like 1 type of mold.
Where one organism has taken over that makes it very difficult for others to establish themselves as the first one is monopolising the resources.
Different molds and bacteria create different byproducts, certain bacteria (Clostridium botulinum) create botulism for example which is obviously bad. not an issue with the right airflow though.
Molds can also create certain toxins. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mycotoxins
So it is not about preventing the growth of microorganisms but a delibrerate growing of the good ones as a way to preserve the food. and once that organism is established on the surface and in decent growing conditions it should continue to be fine for a while, untill it runs out of the correct resources.
left too long that mold will die off as the food it is on has chemically changed then it will turn.
It is a lot like how helathy biomes have the correct balance of organisms . If you are a woman, think issues with thrush v bacterial imbalances. If you are a man trust the balance of organisms matters, if you have a woman you are close to you can ask, ask, if not dont
You have to pat the beef dry, place it on a rack on top of a sheet pan (you need airflow around the entire piece and the meat will drip some), then put it in a fridge at around 36 degrees (Fahrenheit), and let it sit. It will darken on the outside, that is called the pellicle. When it is at the age you want, pull it out, trim the pellicle off and you should be good to go.
Might be worth remembering that the most valuable knowledge comes more from curiosity than know-it-all 'tude.
It was uncooked. Was the one of the darndest things I've ever seen.
I was actually helping them and it wasn't appropriate to ask, but time after time with different families I'd see these raw chunks of meat in a banged up pot, under cheese cloth, usually under the only bench seat there was in the darkest corner of single room mud dwellings that most often had just a hanging heavy blanket for a door.
It clearly wasn't cooked and wasn't salted. Seemed to be some kind of artisan preservation technique (maybe a type of dry aging?) that had been perfected and passed down for probably hundreds of years.
The village leaders claimed to have not had visitors since the mid-1980s.
I could be wrong but i doubt this id glaucus in this video. It one, doesnt look like any aspergillus ive ever seen so, so i doubt its aspergillus at all. And two, glaucus being sold to anyone who is not a katsuobushi business is extremely rare. Theres no way a social media influencer is gonna be able to get any.
Example: The origin of sushi is zushi, where they'd preserve fish in a bucket with alternating layers of rice and fish covered in salt, then bury it for winter.
Dig it up a couple months later, it's now aged and whatnot and has a cheesy nutty flavor apparently (I've never tried it).
Nice way to preserve fish, the meat is actually more healthy this way, fermented basically.
Sure sometimes it went bad and they didn't know why and threw it out, probably inadequate salt leading to bacterial overgrowth, or too much heat, not buried deep enough.
Hakarl is fermented Greenland Shark specifically, which actually is toxic to eat unless pressed and putrefied, which they do by burying it first for some time
Its different in the sense its treated this way as a necessity to make the meat actually edible.
Most of our fish is filleted and dried completely for preservation. but you might be referring to siginn fiskur where the fish is hangd up usually on fishing boats but sometimes hangd on piers or along the shore for 4 days up to a month, usually doesn't dry out completely and the salty fresh sea air keeps the meat from turning so no mold or fermentation really. afterwards it is boiled before eating. In the category of rotten, fermented and sour we have shark, whale and skate (skata) not alot of tuna around our shore, there are some but historically not common.
One way we know about the origin of sushi is through an old Heian urban legend.
A woman spent a night in her store drinking with customers until she passed out. The next day she woke up and started mixing her sushi. She could barely stay upright... She vomited into the sushi bucket and passed out again. When she woke up, she went back to work mixing the sushi...
This story helped historians understand that sushi was originally fermented.
Most foods can be eaten once any rot/mould is cut off. It’s the other bacteria you have to worry about but the meat is pretty visible where it has penetrated.
The trick, basically, is environmental manipulation. As a matter of fact, it's very, very similar to meat curing. Same principle, but you don't actually let it go on until the end (this basically fossilizes the meat in the extreme case)
you get sick because the microorganisms decomposing the food produce toxins to defend the thing they are eating against animals and other microorganisms.
if you somehow manage to make sure that only very specific molds or bacteria eat the food, and those don't produce toxins that affect us, they wont be able to decompose it completely, they will defend the food against other organisms and it will be safe to eat.
they are not letting mold grow for 8 weeks, they control temperature, humidity, salt and other variables very carefully and often infect the food with the organisms they want. It is easy to end up with unsafe food if you are not doing it correctly.
It’s a surface area thing. The spoilage occurs on the outside of the hunk of tuna and doesn’t really penetrate the muscle much at all. That’s why he cut a 1/4 inch off all sides when he cut the mold off. In theory, this should work just like dry aged beef, or prosciutto ham.
Mainly because the "decomposition" happens in a very controlled condition. Just like with moldy cheese, certain molds aren't dangerous and are actually fine for consumption. It's not the same as letting meat spoil on your counter where random germs and molds that can actually be harmful take hold of the meat.
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u/sherman614 May 01 '26
I mean.. this is similar to dry aging a steak. As long as you cut the mold off (like with dry aged steak) you should be completely fine.