4. Conclusion

The manufacture of dry-cured ham requires a well-considered choice of raw material for this technology; the biochemical quality of tissues and their level of contamination must now be imperatively specified.

In addition, progress in pig breeding – particularly in terms of the technological quality of muscle and adipose tissue – is likely to lead to a significant improvement in the organoleptic characteristics of the finished product. For several years now, manufacturing techniques (salting, resting) have been constantly evolving, with the aim of producing a very low-salt dry-cured ham. In the future, new technologies could enable us to go even further in this direction; for the time being, it's essentially a question of coupling vacuum salting technology with a low dose of salt, or even sugars, not forgetting the addition of selected ferments to develop interesting...