[Sca-cooks] period smoke houses?

[Sandra Kisner]

>Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
>>What do we know about period smoke houses? Do we have any still existing 
>>ones? Or diagrams, pictures or illuminations? Do we have any written 
>>information on them that might, for instance, tell us which woods they 
>>used or preferred to use?
>
>But we know they did it: there are both Roman and 17th-century recipes 
>that call for hanging foods up to smoke in the kitchen fire or chimney. It 
>may be that the smoke is incidental, and that the warm, dry, updraft is 
>the aspect of the process these cooks were going for.
>
>I think, for what you're looking for, we would need a period book on pig 
>farming for a really detailed description.
>
>Adamantius

A review just appeared today on the BMR listserve of Peter Fowler, Farming 
in the First Millennium AD: British Agriculture between Julius Caesar and 
William the Conquerer.  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2002.  Pp. 
412.  ISBN 0-521-89056-X.  $38.00.  It mentions "Agriculture includes not 
only crop farming but also animal husbandry and associated activities on 
the landscape (such as herb production). Despite the title, there is less 
about actual methods and processes of production and more concentration on 
an overview of country life throughout the examined timeframe. While 
landscape organization and exploitation, such as what field systems looked 
like in the Roman period, dominates, there are briefer explorations of 
social issues, such as belief and conservatism in the countryside, that 
enrich the book. Judicious use of textual evidence in certain instances 
permits insight into the working and living conditions of those on the land 
across the millennium."

The review is a bit long to post here, but is available at the BMCR website 
(http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/), or I could mail it to anyone who is 
interested.

Sandra