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I bought a non-dried pancetta and wanted to prepare a pasta recipe that involved cured pancetta. Since it was the weekend and I wouldn't be able to go to the market to get one, I heavily seasoned it with salt, pepper and paprika, and put it wide open in the fridge (no covers, just sitting on a plate). It is been there for about two days now (I understand that it is far, far from actually being cured), the consistency and color has changed (it is much more dry than before).

Since before this I was preparing pasta with non dried pancetta, I'm already convinced this is a step forward so I just wanted to try it out.

But my concern now is with the safety of eating it, as I have heard about things like botulism and so on.

I intend to cook the pancetta before eating it obviously, but I heard that some toxins/bacteria can survive the cooking process.

Is it safe to eat? For information, the non-dried pancetta was frozen. I defroze it, then heavily seasoned it, then stored it in the fridge. I used no special ingredients other than the seasonings.

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    It's probably no worse than using raw meat and cooking it before using/eating it
    – Max
    Jul 19, 2021 at 13:46
  • Are you asking if the introduction of salt and spices on the outside of the meat could cause foodborne illness?
    – GdD
    Jul 19, 2021 at 13:58
  • @GdD No. It is more the fact that I defroze food that was previously frozen and left it on the fridge uncovered for two days. Usually, after opening a packet of meat, I freeze the rest instead of leaving it open on the fridge. In this case I did precisely the contrary.
    – embedded_dev
    Jul 19, 2021 at 14:03
  • A couple of questions/comments: It's technically not "pancetta" unless it is cured. Also, while true pancetta can be eaten raw, it is usually cooked. Do you mean to say that you bought a piece of pork belly? Finally, it sounds like it was kept in the refrigerator, so that's safe... I am not really sure what you are asking.
    – moscafj
    Jul 19, 2021 at 14:14
  • Hi, we have stopped answering questions on whether a specific food handled in a specific way is safe, since there are myriads of variations, and food safety works differently. There are a few basic rules, and you have to apply them literally to your piece of food. We have summarized them under the tag wiki cooking.stackexchange.com/tags/food-safety/info, with further links on the bottom. Since I can't close as a duplicate to a tag wiki, I chose a target which seems to apply to your case as far as I can tell - it is better to read the wiki itself for you to decide which rule applies.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Jul 19, 2021 at 14:26

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