What is "salting"

Salt \Salt\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Salted; p. pr. & vb. n. Salting.]

1. To sprinkle, impregnate, or season with salt; to preserve with salt or in brine; to supply with salt; as, to salt fish, beef, or pork; to salt cattle.

2. To fill with salt between the timbers and planks, as a ship, for the preservation of the timber.

   To salt a mine, to artfully deposit minerals in a mine in order to deceive purchasers regarding its value. [Cant]

   To salt away, To salt down, to prepare with, or pack in, salt for preserving, as meat, eggs, etc.; hence, colloquially, to save, lay up, or invest sagely, as money.

Salting \Salt"ing\, n.

1. The act of sprinkling, impregnating, or furnishing, with salt.

2. A salt marsh.

n. 1 (context uncountable English) the act of sprinkling salt, either on food, or on an icy road 2 (context countable English) a salt marsh 3 (context uncountable English) The act of tampering with an investigation site by adding bogus evidence. vb. (present participle of salt English)

n. the act of adding salt to food

Salting may refer to:

Salting is the preservation of food with dry edible salt. It is related to pickling in general and more specifically to brining (preparing food with brine, that is, salty water) and is one form of curing. It is one of the oldest methods of preserving food, and two historically significant salt-cured foods are salted fish (usually dried and salted cod or salted herring) and salt-cured meat (such as bacon). Vegetables such as runner beans and cabbage are also often preserved in this manner.

Salting is used because most bacteria, fungi and other potentially pathogenic organisms cannot survive in a highly salty environment, due to the hypertonic nature of salt. Any living cell in such an environment will become dehydrated through osmosis and die or become temporarily inactivated.

It was discovered in the 19th century that salt mixed with nitrites ( saltpeter) would color meats red, rather than grey, and consumers at that time then strongly preferred the red-colored meat. The food hence preserved stays healthy and fresh for days avoiding bacterial decay.

In mineral exploration, salting is the process of adding gold or silver to an ore sample to change the value of the ore with intent to deceive potential buyers of the mine. In the US state of Arizona it is a class 6 felony. A famous example of salting is the former Canadian gold company Bre-X, which salted its drill core samples, leading investors to believe that they were in possession of one of the largest gold reserves ever discovered. Salting is an example of a confidence trick.

Saltings were festive ceremonies which, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, initiated Cambridge and Oxford freshmen into the academic and social communities of their individual colleges. Humorous speeches by one or more sophisters (second- or third-year students) introduced first-year students to the assembled college society. Recently texts of several salting speeches have been identified. Relatively little is known about the conventions governing these entertainments; when the tradition died out in the mid-seventeenth century, most of the performance details were lost as well. Nevertheless elements of the tradition are preserved in the texts and may be amplified by students' diaries, tutors' account books, and university statutes regulating the custom.