From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   QUORA: HOW DID PEOPLE PRESERVE MEAT BACK THEN?   
   Answered by Garnet Scarlette, 1 year ago   
   Well, coming from Portugal, people didn’t have electricity in the   
   countryside until the late 70s/80s So in order to conserve the meat, my   
   great-grandma (and every Portuguese people who weren’t rich) had a thing   
   called “Salgadeira”, something like    
   “Box of Salt”.   
      
   They had tons of salt and they would submerge the pieces of meat in the salt.   
   A little context, Portugal was very, VERY, poor in the 40s, 50s, 60s. In late   
   October, a pig would be slaughtered and EVERYTHING was prepared to be eaten in   
   the future.   
      
   Belly, snout, feet, intestines (sausages and blood sausages), tail, ears,   
   testicles, everything was used and all of that was put in the “Salgadeira”   
   (Except for the sausages, they had a special room called “Fumeiro”) and   
   would stay there until    
   the people decided to eat it.   
      
   Now you ask “Wasn’t it salty?”  Yes, of course.   
      
   That’s why the day before, the people would take out the piece and put it in   
   a basin full of water during the night before and the whole day and it would   
   be perfect to be cooked. This pig lasted a whole year and they had to make it   
   count!     
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)