Fermented sausage

The ingredients found in a fermented sausage include meat, fat, bacterial culture, salt, spices, sugar and nitrite.

Nitrite is commonly added to fermented sausages to speed up the curing of meat and also impart an attractive colour while preventing the growth of the Clostridium botulinum bacteria which causes botulism.

Since the dry sausages of the Mediterranean, in countries such as Italy, Spain, and Portugal contain 25–35% water and more than 4% salt, they may be stored at room temperature.

Fermented sausage harbor a variety of lactic acid-producing bacteria and, depending on the style, occasionally fungi.

[4] As with other fermented foods, well-defined starter cultures are used commercially to ensure the introduction of the desired types of microbes.