School me on curing salt


 
The curing salt is what makes it taste like pastrami. Otherwise you have just have beef. Very briefly it's a preservative that helps prevent things like botulism, especially in cold smoked meats. The smoking and salting further works as a preservative. While we now have refrigeration that makes these things less necessary, cured meats taste awesome.
 
Anne, that's a really interesting site. Thanks for the link. If I had space, I'd build a drainpipe smoker!
And, thanks also to you ChuckO, something worthy from Wikipedia.
 

 

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