Salamis are preserved meats requiring a period of agening so as to affect the chemical,phisical and microbiological alterations necessary to obtain the finished product. The capillary gas chromatographic analysis of organic extract of salami permits the study of evolution of lipids,glucides and other significative substances. This study is applied to several typical northern italian salamis differing as to recipe,size and type of additives employed. The resulting data, statistically processed to differenziates the salamis in relation to the factors tested, showed that the agening process is a highly discriminating factor.The analysis of variance also indicated that the types of additives and weight were not discriminating factors whereas the individual recipe pointed out a more complex overall picture.
