Soube recentemente que o bacalhau costumava ser preservado por salga e secagem ao ar. Então o bacalhau era muito bem preservado? Tinha algum cheiro especial? Ou seja, como por exemplo, era um pouco malcheiro?
Espero que esta pergunta não ponha ninguém ofendido. Estou apenas curiosa e ando a procurar conservações de alimentos o mais possível.
Muito obrigada pela sua ajuda.
I’m sorry my Portuguese isn’t good enough to answer you in Portuguese.
There are two ways cod is preserved. One is by air drying without salt. This product is often called stockfish and is primarily produced in Norway and Iceland. It is smelly while being produced but after it is completely air-dried (outside on enormous racks for months over the winter), it isn’t especially smelly. Yes, it’s fish and smells like fish but not a strong odor.
Salt cod (bacalhau), is salted for a few weeks and then air dried. I can’t find anything to document this but I suspect that salted fish will dry much faster because the salt tends to draw moisture out of the fish, but the salt cod does not need to be thoroughly dry to be preserved. Salt cod can be a little pliable whereas stockfish is really hard. I’ve never been around somewhere that salt cod was being produced, but I suspect like stockfish, it’s a bit fishy at the beginning of the process. Fully prepared salt cod isn’t especially strong in odor — certainly no more than stockfish.
Fish preserved with either technique can be kept for more than a year without spoiling.