SC - Nanna's Smoked Lamb?

[Jim Revells]

> Subject: Re: SC - Nanna's Smoked Lamb? was Dishes made by the whole family
.
>  Nanna wrote:
> I´d say in Iceland meat has been smoked since the Settlement but I´ll look
> into it and see if I can find anything further. It certainly was the main
> preservation method for meat during the Middle Ages and up until the 19th
> century.

    I knew it was done extensivly in the Americas during the 18th-20th
Centuries, but I was not sure how far back the smoke house tradition went.
I have read much more about things, like fish, pork & beef, being dried or
salted than about smoking.  I grew up much of my young life in Nashville, TN
& there was a commercial Smoke House next door.  I guess the smell of
Hickory & Oak smoke just reminds me of home.  I don't have the place to do a
cold smoke here in MA but your methods sound interesting.  Is it a salt,
pepper or a sugar cure?  Most of what I have seen done with smoking has been
with Pork.

> For a proper smoked leg of lamb, you need:
> 2) sheepdung as fuel (o.k. some people who don´t know better use wood,
such
> as birch, but then the meat doesn´t taste right)

    While I know there is no crossover between the fule & the food-I'll
stick to wood since it is more available here than sheepdung.  I have heard
simmalr staments made by some Native Americans about the right fule for
making jerkey being dried buffalo/cattle dung.

> 3) at least three weeks (this is cold smoking and the fire should be lit
for
> a few hours each day). The meat gets better with time and I remember from
my
> childhood legs that had hung in smoke for months and were almost black,
and
> the best I´ve ever had.

    My Uncle Jack used to smoke his own Hams for Christmas & did it over
several weeks so that they too had the almost black outer layer on them &
they were the best I ever had.
    Thanks for the reply!  I know you have a book coming out  (I do want a
copy), but is there any other Icelandic Traditional Cooking books in English
you might recomend? I think both would go well with the several Swedish &
Danish ones I have.
Hej!
Olaf