Cut up small
Many people think that what you find in the deli counter is meat and sliced is cold cuts. This is a misconception.
The Hungarian Food Guide also distinguishes four major product groups and priority categories among meat products. In addition to cold cuts, salamis, hams and cured sausages, it also mentions, among others, parsnips, sausages and English bacon. For each of these, different requirements must be met for a product to be labelled with that name.
What is a cold cut?
The name “cold cuts” is a guarantee in itself. The minimum protein content (12%), the maximum water content (70%, which means not only added water but also the water naturally present in the meat), the fat content (35%) and the sodium chloride content (2.2%) are all regulated. If a product does not meet one of these criteria, it cannot bear the name cold cuts. If the packaging says “cutlet”, it is because it does not look like a cutlet, it cannot be called a cold cut because it does not meet one of the criteria. Cold cuts have a minimum meat content of 50% and may be unsmoked, smoked or smoke flavoured.
Parisian, for example, is not a cold cut, although many people would classify it as such because of its ease of slicing. As there are no meat mosaics in parisian, it cannot be called a cold cut, but is a completely separate category of meat products.
Storage and consumption tips
If you look carefully at the best-before date, you can do your bit for food safety and avoid food waste in a jiffy. Cold cuts have an ‘use by’ date, which means that it is no longer safe to eat them after the date on the product. When buying packaged cold cuts, it is always a good idea to make sure that you can eat the quantity you have bought by the date stated. If you choose store-bought sliced cold cuts, you should eat them within 1-2 days.
Packaged cold cuts will keep longest if refrigerated between 0-5 °C, unopened. After opening, it is best to store them in the coldest part of the fridge, on the first shelf above the compartments, and eat them within 2-3 days. It is advisable to remove the cold cuts from the fridge half an hour before serving, as the flavours are better at room temperature.
Zala, Italian, spring, sopron, Vienna
The names of the cold cuts are limited only by the imagination: vegetables dominate in the Mexican spring cut, while the Zala cut contains marinated thigh meat or shoulder. In addition to meat, there are also mosaics of small meat in the Italian, Sopron and Viennese cold cuts. In addition to these, there are many other imaginative versions on the shelves or on the deli counter.
We have been eating Zala cold cuts since the seventies. It was developed by the State Meat Industry Company in Zalaegerszeg, which gave it its name. In addition to cooked meat and marinated pork mosaics, pepper and garlic dominate the taste and aroma. The Hungarian Foodstuffs Codex also gives a precise definition of Zala cold cuts: the meat content of the finished product is at least 60%.
Italian cold cuts are the best of the Kometa cold cuts. Contrary to its fanciful name, it is a specifically Hungarian product: it is made from pork, and its distinctive taste and smell is due to the nutmeg, pepper and garlic it contains.
In the meat preparation called spring cold cuts you can also find cheese, peas and carrots. These are typically lower fat products.
Both Kometa’s Sopron cold cuts and Vienna cold cuts contain 70% pork. Both cold cuts have mosaics of minced meat embedded in them and, like the Parisian, can be delicious breaded and fried. The two cold cuts differ in their seasoning. There are many legends about their origins and fancy names, but none of them is well founded.
