Volatile components of cured and uncured pork: The role of nitrite and the formation of nitrogen compounds

A slice‐curing method was used to prepare bacon and nitrite‐free salt pork. Headspace volatiles from the cooked products, and from cooked untreated pork, were entrained on Tenax GC and analysed by combined gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry. Aliphatic alcohols and aldehydes dominated the volatiles of all samples; small amounts of ketones, alkybenzenes, pyrazines, pyridines, thiazoles and furans were also present. Untreated pork and salt pork contained essentially the same volatiles, while the bacon showed a number of qualitative differences: several unsaturated and aromatic aldehydes were only present in nitrite free samples and benzonitrile, phenylacetonitrile and four alkyl nitrates were found only in bacon volatiles. The possible origins of these nitrogen‐compounds from the reaction of nitrite with flavour precursors are discussed.