New posting are no longer accepted. You are still welcome to read the messages and use the Search Function. Salt used for curing tends to dry out the meat as well as the microbes by drawing fluids from the tissues and freeing bound water by creating such a concentration of dissolved ions outside of the bacteria and mold cells that water inside the cells is drawn out across there membranes. Thus the product contains less water and proportionally more fat.
Cold smoking is another preservation technique which is kind of a chemical treatment.
Smoke is a very complex material with over 100 components that include alcohols,acids,phenolic compounds, and various toxic and carcinogenic substances. The toxic substanances inhibit the growth of microbes and the phenolics retard fat oxidation. Now I'm going to smoke some tomatoes that I grew in my garden.