The Stairs

The Stairs are the skills that lead up to the Temple: the adjacent crafts a curesmith learns before and alongside dry-curing proper. They include brining, smoking, making fresh sausage, terrines and pates, and confit. None of them is dry-curing, but each builds a part of the hand it needs.

They matter because they teach the fundamentals in a lower-stakes setting. Brining teaches how salt and cure move through meat. Fresh sausage teaches grind, mix, fat and casing without the long risk of a slow cure. Smoking teaches flavour and surface. Terrines, pates and confit teach seasoning, fat and gentle cooking. A curesmith who has climbed these steps arrives at the dry-curing bench already fluent in salt, cure, texture and flavour.

They are drawn as stairs because they are both the way in and the way on: the beginner starts here, and the experienced curesmith keeps returning to them. They surround the Temple rather than sitting inside it.