Biotechnology of flavor generation in fermented meats

Abstract

Traditionally, meat fermentation was based on the use of natural flora, including the back-slopping, or addition of a previous successful fermented sausage. However, these practices gave a great variability in the developed flora and affected the safety and quality of the sausages (Toldrá, 2002; Toldrá & Flores, 2007). The natural flora of fermented meat has been studied for many years (Leistner, 1992; Toldrá, 2006a), and more recently, these micro-organisms have been isolated and biochemically identified through molecular methods applied to extracted DNA and RNA (Cocolin, Manzano, Aggio, Cantoni, & Comi, 2001; Cocolin, Manzano, Cantoni, & Comi, 2001; Comi, Urso, Lacumin, Rantsiou, Cattaneo & Cantoni, 2005). © 2008 Springer New York.