ham is cured but not 'cooked' (in the conventional 'heat it till internal temp is 'XXX degrees). and the color comes from both the color of the meat, and the curing process. if you 'cook it' after its cured, it gets paler, but not as 'white' as cooked uncured pork.

cooking is just one method of making meat safe to eat. cooking kills of certain bacteria, and dries meat, (making it harder for other(a new crop!) bacteria to gain a foothold)

salting/sugar curing/and drying and smoking all do the same thing (by different methods.)

we have all seen old newpapers turn yellow, and then brown, and to finally flake away as dust.. the process is called 'slow combustion' the paper doesn't break out into flames, but it is destroyed, just as effectively as if it had been burnt to ashes.

salt curing/sugar curing(not as effective)/smoking (a form of dehydrating) can be use singly, or together to 'cook meat'(with out heat).
sugar curing was know before the civil war, but it became big then, when the south suffered major salt shortages --the one big salt works (in tennesse, i think it was) fell into northern hands for a while, and the union army pretty much destroyed the works.

you can also 'cook' with vinegar/lime juice, (i forget the term for it, but love it... soak shrimp in lime juice, with hot peppers, pour of the juice (give it about an hour to cook--and have the best shrimps for cocktails!)(connie might know it, since it is a mexican spanish term i think)

a second factor with color and salt curing is sodium nitrate (salt peter) is used as well as sodium chloride,(table salt) the nitrates in the salt combine with the meat to 'color it pink'.

there are hundreds of different 'recipes'.. concerning how long to 'salt cure' and how (if) to combine a salt cure with smoking or sugar.. and some like prosciutto (real italian prosciutto) are considered unsafe by FDA-(or were, for years, and couldn't be imported to US)
proscuitto was 'cured' but never cooked (smoked/heated) in anyway. all the 'curing' was done with salt and air (to further dry it) prosciutto is considered 'raw meat' by FDA. Many italian saugages (and other european sausages, Polish, etc) are cured the same way, and you can't bring them into this country.

salt cured food is ok, (not my favorite) i dislike most smoke cured foods. all the different methods of 'curing' reduce the moisture. (as does conventional heat cooking) dry meat (of fruits) keep fresh longer than 'moist' ones.


my other obsession