Potted meat

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Potted meat is a form of traditional food preservation in which hot cooked meat is placed in a pot, tightly packed to exclude air, and then covered with hot fat.^[1][2] As the fat cools, it hardens and forms an airtight seal, preventing some spoilage by airborne bacteria.^[3] Before the days of refrigeration, potted meat was developed as a way to preserve meat when a freshly slaughtered animal could not be fully eaten immediately.^[3][4]

Spores of Clostridium botulinum can survive cooking at 100 °C (212 °F),^[5] and, in the anaerobic neutral pH storage environment, result in botulism.

Often when making potted meat, the meat of only one animal was used,^[3][2] although other recipes, such as the Flemish potjevleesch, used three or four different meats (animals).