Pretty sure. I make bacon and dabble with salumi. It's definitely not strictly a food safety issue. I sometimes put a pinch of pink salt in with my duck confit cure, and it comes out distinctively hammier. Nitric oxide interacts with myoglobin in ways that alter your taste perception; sort of the way I understand miracleberries make things taste sweeter (by cutting off your perception of bitterness), nitrites do to the metallic flavor compounds in meat.