Pastramă (internationally better known as pastrami) is a traditional Romanian cured meat, usually made from goose, beef, lamb, pork, chicken, or turkey. It was created as a form of preservation in which the raw meat is brined, dried, seasoned with herbs and spices, smoked, and finally steamed.

Pastramă was introduced to the United States in the second half of the 19th century, with the wave of Romanian Jews who emigrated to the East Coast of the US, mostly to New York City. There, the word pastramă changed to the more American-sounding pastrami. 

Country ham is heavily salted cured pork leg, traditionally associated with the Southern United States. It originated during Colonial times as means of preservation in a humid climate and is nowadays prized as an artisanally made delicacy, different in each of the Southern states.

To produce it, pork leg is first cured with a mixture of salt and sodium nitrate, but some recipes also use sugar (Missouri style, for example) and spices in the cure. The leg is left to age for a month or up to three years, and washed to remove the brine and the mold. 

Tasso ham is a traditional Cajun cured meat product originating from Louisiana. Although this cured meat product contains the word ham in its name, it's actually made from pork shoulder. The meat is sliced across the grain and the slices are then cured in salt and a bit of sugar for a few hours before they're rinsed, rubbed with salt, pepper, garlic, and cayenne pepper, and hot-smoked until fully cooked.

This dish can be eaten as it is, but it's also often used in stews, soups, rice, red beans, and gumbo. The term hasso comes from the Spanish word tasajo, denoting a slice of cured dried meat. The earliest meantion of tasso ham dates back to the late 1700s.

Smithfield ham is a trademarked country ham hailing from Smithfield, Virginia, where it's finish-cured. The ham is made from pork meat that's processed, treated, hickory-smoked, aged, salted, cured, and aged for at least 6 months (some might be aged for up to 2 years).

The whole process must be done within Smithfield and the pigs must be fed a diet of peanuts and grains. Smithfield ham has a dry and stringy texture, while the flavors are salty. Nowadays, there is a wide range of Smithfield ham versions, such as Baked Apple Spiced Spiral Sliced Ham, Brown Sugar Spiral Sliced Ham, Crunchy Glaze Spiral Sliced Ham, or Pecan Praline Spiral Sliced Ham.

Long before beef jerky, there was pemmican, a Native American snack with a high fat content that was originally used as travel food. The word pemmican (pimîhkâ) comes from the Cree tribe and is derived from the word pimi, meaning fat or grease.

It's made from a mixture of fat and lean meat of buffalos. The meat is thinly sliced, dried, and ground into a powder to make beef jerky, which is later mixed with fat to make pemmican. The flavor is creamy and salty, and pemmican bars are considered an outdoor tradition, useful for hunters, fishermen, and campers alike, as it provides tons of energy in a small package and it also has a very long shelf life.