Smoked meat is the result of a method of preparing red meat, white meat, and seafood which originated in the Paleolithic.
Smoking with wood
Generally meat is smoked using
hardwood or
Pellet fuel made from hardwood; softwood is not recommended due to increased PAH from the resin.
Wood smoke adds flavor,
aroma, and helps with preservation.
There are two types of smoking: cold smoking generally occurs below and has more preservative value. Hot smoking generally occurs above .
Most woods are
Wood drying and not used
Green wood.
There are many types of wood used for smoking; a partial list includes:
-
Woods with a mild flavor: Alder, apple, apricot, Fraxinus, birch, cherry, maple, peach, pear.
-
Woods with a medium flavor: Almond, hickory, pecan, Quercus stellata, Lithocarpus.
-
Woods with a strong flavor: Acacia, Juglans nigra, chokecherry, Vitis, mesquite.
-
Other woods and organic matter: Avocado, Laurus nobilis, beech, Juglans cinerea, carrotwood, camphor, castanopsis, chestnut, Thyine wood, Populus, Malus, Ficus, guava, Eucalyptus, Celtis, Prosopis pallida, Syringa vulgaris, Arbutus, mulberry, olive, peat, plum, persimmon, Allspice, tea, and willow.
Types
African fish smoking
Close to 80% of all fish caught in most
African nations is
Smoked fish.
Traditionally the processing and smoking of fish has been done by women.
The primary method of smoking is
Hot-smoking, the flavor from hot smoking preferred by local consumers.
Traditional smoking methods include using bamboo racks over smoky fires, mud ovens and placing the fish directly on smoldering woods and grasses.
Modern methods of smoking include using re-purposed
oil drums,
, and
.
American barbecue (smoked)
American barbecue's roots start with the Native Americans who
smoked fish and game to preserve food for leaner times.
When Europeans first came to North America, they brought with them smoking techniques from Europe and
Central Asia and combined those with the Native American techniques.
American barbecue has distinct regional differences:
North Carolina Piedmont style is
pork shoulder with a vinegar & ketchup-based sauce; Eastern style is the whole hog with vinegar & pepper-based sauce;
South Carolina is whole hog or shoulder with a mustard-based sauce; Western Tennessee and
Memphis barbeque are famous for its
dry rub ribs, but wet is also available;
Kentucky is known for their
mutton, pork shoulder and whole hog are also very popular;
Kansas City barbecue is more about the
Barbecue sauce, often used with smoked pork, lamb, chicken,
beef and turkey.
,
Sausage,
Beef brisket are the prevalent meats in Texas.
Bacon
Bacon originated with
petaso, a Roman version of what is now called bacon.
The
etymology of the word
bacon has four possibilities; the
Old French word
bacon, the Althochdeutsch word
bahho, the
Old Dutch word
baken, and the Common Germanic word
bakkon.
John Harris of
Calne, was the first to commercialize production of bacon in the 1770s.
Bacon is primarily
pork, depending on the type; it can come from the belly, back, loin or side.
The preparation of bacon varies by type, but most involve curing and smoking.
Some of the types of bacon include American ( side bacon or streaky bacon), buckboard (shoulder bacon), Canadian (
back bacon), British and Irish (rasher), Australian (middle bacon), Italian (
pancetta), Hungarian (szalonna), German (
speck), Japanese (beikon), and Slovakian (oravská).
Bacon can also be produced from beef, lamb, and
wild game.
Country ham
Country ham is a popular ham originally developed by American Colonists who took traditional Native American fish smoking practices and used them for pork.
Country hams traditionally were made in the American Southeast from
Virginia to
Missouri.
Most country hams are trimmed, wrapped,
Cured ham in salt, sugar, pepper and various spices. In modern times, some preparations add
for
food safety.
After curing the hams are smoked for at least 12 hours, then hung to dry for 9 to 12 months. Some traditional processes can take years from curing to being ready to consume.
Finnan haddie
Finnan haddie is a cold smoked
haddock that originated in medieval times in the Scottish village of Findon.
Traditionally the haddock is smoked with
green wood and
peat.
Smoked finnan haddie is the colour of
straw, newer commercial methods of drying without smoke produce a gold or yellow colour.
Until the 1800s when regular rail service was established, finnan haddie remained a local dish, now it can be found in markets worldwide.
Katsuobushi
Katsuobushi is a key
umami ingredient in
Japanese cuisine, with bonito flakes among its many applications.
Katsuobushi is made from
skipjack tuna that is washed, quartered smoked with
oak, pasania, or castanopsis wood, and cooled repeatedly for a month.
Some producers will spray the fish with Aspergillus glaucus to promote further drying.
After one to 24 months the fish will be katsu (hard) and ready for use. To make bonito flakes it is shaved very thinly using a Katsuobushi grater box.
Montreal-style smoked meat
A type of
kosher-style Delicatessen meat product made by salting and curing beef
brisket with spices. The brisket is allowed to absorb the flavours over a week, is then
hot smoked to cook through, and finally is steamed to completion. The preparation method may be similar to New York
pastrami, but Montreal smoked meat is cured in seasoning with more cracked
Black pepper and savoury flavourings, such as
coriander, garlic, and mustard seeds, and significantly less sugar.
Pastrami
Pastrami is most often made with beef
brisket; it can be made with other cuts of beef.
The meat is cured in a
brine (most often dry), after drying, it is coated in
and smoked.
Smoking can be done by either cold smoking or hot smoking.
Pastrami evolved from the
Huns who would tenderize and dry meat under their saddles.
Armenians saw what the Huns had done and created
Pastirma that was spiced and air-dried meat.
first started brining, spicing, and smoking the beef and created what is now called pastrami.
When
Romanian Jews immigrated to the United States, Canada, and Great Britain in the late 1800s, they carried that tradition of pastrami with them.
The Romanians that immigrated to the United States, mostly settled in New York City area and developed the classic New York Pastrami.
Those that immigrated to Canada mostly settled in
Montreal used a different brining technique and spices and called it smoked meat.
Pastrami is still produced in
Southwest Asia and the
Middle East and is called
Pastirma.
While customarily made with beef, in other regions it can be made with lamb,
goat,
Water buffalo, and
camel.
uses a similar brine and spices, but is not smoked.
Zhangcha duck
Zhangcha duck is a dish from
Sichuan cuisine Province in southwestern China made from the Chengdu Ma duck.
The duck is
Marination in a
Pickling then smoked with
Camphorosmeae and tea leaves.
After smoking, the duck is
Deep frying, boned and served over
rice.
Health concerns
One study has shown an association between the frequency of consumption of smoked foods and intestinal cancer.
However, the study was restricted to a small Slovenian population in Hungary, where the local smoke curing process produces levels of contaminants roughly eight times as high as standard processes elsewhere.
The use of soft woods is discouraged, as the resins in softwood increases the concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that are known carcinogens.
See also
External links
