system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does smoking and curing meat work?

As the title says. How does it work? If I were to process say a pig on my own how would the meat taste without smoking or curing?
gpt
These processes are sort of opposites, if you think about it.   Curing meat is about preserving meat without cooking it.  Smoking meat IS cooking it, albeit slowly. 

When you smoke meat you're basically cooking it low and slow.  Really low and really slow.  And that process relaxes all the connective tissue and makes taste moist (despite the fact that it's really cooked to hell and back).  Because it's swimming in collagen.  If no collagen is present, then you just get dry smoky meat, which is okay, too. 

Curing is different.  Curing is basically salt and time.  First, salt curing kills microbes and bacteria in your meat by removing the water in them.  It also removed the water in the meat itself, making it harder and condensing the flavor.  This dry meat is also less susceptible to new bacteria and microbes, because they want a moist environment.