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Meat from Taiwan

Siraw (silaw)siraw

Siraw is the salted pork of the Amis people of eastern Taiwan. Pork pieces are rubbed and kneaded with salt, sealed in a jar and left to cure; some makers drain and resalt it over months, and some add millet wine or cooked rice for a sour note. It is usually cooked before eating.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Siraw itself.

Short entryMeat

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedWhat goes in. No source gives amounts for this ferment.
pork pieces
salt (about 12% in a Hualien DARES study); optional millet wine
cooked or glutinous rice
Starterspontaneous
Start
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Close-up: salt moving into a piece

What changes: Salt is rubbed and kneaded into the pork

Step 1 of 4
Rub pork with salt; knead
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Siraw is the salted pork of the Amis people of eastern Taiwan. Pork pieces are rubbed and kneaded with salt, sealed in a jar and left to cure; some makers drain and resalt it over months, and some add millet wine or cooked rice for a sour note. It is usually cooked before eating.

What makes this one different

Siraw is mainly a heavy salt cure in a sealed jar; only the rice or millet-wine versions get a lactic sour note. Rice-packed meat ferments such as naem sour within days.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tmmyan (咑瑪糆)Atayal; pork with salt and millet (or rice and rice wine in a lab study), sealed ~2 weeks; pH fell from 6.1 to 4.0.

Safety

Home-salted raw meat sealed in a jar is a botulism risk. Taiwan's health authority advises against curing raw meat at home or making sealed low-acid foods (pH 4.6 or above), and advises heating such foods before eating. WHO says boiling destroys the toxin, for example over 85 °C at the core for 5 minutes or longer, while the spores survive heat.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

  1. [s1] Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Siraw participatory study (via search summary)gov
  2. [s2] Wikipedia, Siraw/Silaw (article now 404; via search summary)wiki
  3. [s3] Tmmyan sterilisation study abstract (via search summary)other
  4. [who-botulism] World Health Organization, Botulism (fact sheet)gov
  5. [mohw-botulism] Ministry of Health and Welfare (Taiwan), 慎防肉毒桿菌危害 (Beware of botulism)gov