The prehistoric man was a hunter. He hunted and then consumed. In the Stone Age, some basic tools to cut meat had already been invented. Thin strips of meat were cut and then dried under the sun. More evolved was the “pemmicam”, another form of conservation consisting of dried meat, powdered and mixed with fats. With the later discovery of fire, the possibilities of conservation grew due to the use of smoke and cooking.
Nevertheless we can’t talk about true conservation until the early uses of salt. The first data available about its use are from 3000 BC, from the kingdom of Simer, where seasoned meat and fish were trade goods; there are also some references from Babylon. In that era, salt was a quite expensive good, though great amounts of it were consumed in the places were it was produced. Jews obtained it from the Red Sea, and Egyptians,from the desert.

In the imperial Rome, there was an intense trade between cities in the seaside and villages in the mountains. Romans traded typical Mediterranean goods: salt, oil, wine, vinegar, wheat, salty fish… for cured and/or salty meat of any kind: goat, lamb, beef, pork… There aren’t any indications to think that mountain folks knew the techniques to cram meat, nor they could have learned it from Romans; they only made salty meat, jam, bacon, and cured meat.

The nearest “salt route” to La Garrotxa is the Via Anna, which departing from Empúries passes by Besalú and Castellfollit de la Roca, then ramifying when it reaches the shire of El Ripollés, either to the valley of Ribes up to La Cerdanya, passing by the pass of Toses, or to the Vallespir, passing by Coll d’Ares.

References from the Mediaeval Age are quite scant, though the later time of the great discoveries made the seasonings to spring up.
In the XV century, all cattle but pigs were grown by the cities; it was killed in slaughterhouses and it was sold in butcheries. However pigs were still grown in the small villages and the sausage was elaborated by every famíly. This custom, though it has been lost in the urbanized areas, still keeps alive in some isolated houses.
The modern development of meat products processing took place around mid-XIX century and it is closely linked to the growing industrialisation of that time, which brought the liberalisation of trade and the free circulation of goods.

J. SALA RIERA, S.A. With a history longer than 150 years, it is one of the oldest meat firms in the country.