[Sca-cooks] period smoke houses?

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius answered me with:
> 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?
> >
> > I know we have records from the 19th and 18th centuries. We have a
> > re-created farm community here called Pioneer Farms, which has one.
>
> At the risk of giving what appears to be a maddeningly frustrating
> non-answer, I'll point out that much of the culture, overall, of the
> earliest settlements of the US in places like Virginia, has remained
> largely unchanged (at least, certain aspects of it) from 17th-century
> England. I suspect some of the smokehouse designs seen in The Foxfire
> Books are pretty similar to designs used in period.
Yes, probably. But as in cooking I'd prefer to see the original recipe 
rather than making an assumption.
> On the other hand, to add to the mix, it also seems likely that there
> might have been fewer dedicated smokehouses in period Europe than
> there were in early American settlements, or even today, both because
> salting was so necessary a preserving process that many foods were
> salted and left at that. These people were probably not smoking their
> foods for flavor, generally,
For flavor alone I agree. Since about all I can find these days is 
lightly smoked foods where the smoke has had almost no preservative 
effect, it seems we have gone to the opposite extreme. However, having 
decided in period to preserve something by smoking, I would think there 
might be some writing somewhere that would explain which woods to use, 
how long to do it, etc.
> and I doubt the particular climate and
> insect population (the creosote layer acquired by smoked meats is an
> insect repellant) justified using fuel for such a frivolous purpose.
I thought some of the fish was smoked. Or was this just dried? Yes, the 
burning wood just for smoking something might have been considered 
extravagant. But some folks seemed to things that would be considered 
extravagant, such as eat the unborn animals and tiny birds.

Yes, the wood would have been much more available in North American 
than in Europe and conversely salt might have been less available. 
Since salt was taxed, sometimes heavily, that could play a part.
> Surely the period recipe corpus, in general, refers frequently to
> salted and, less frequently, pickled, meats, and not often, if at
> all, to smoked foods. In fact, if you look at recipes which go into
> detail on ways to keep the smoke off a given food, it suggests that
> at least some period cultures might have viewed smoky meats as
> something to be avoided.
Or they were cooking over coal or pine wood?
>
> 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.
Or simply why build a special building and keep a seperate fire burning 
when you already have the kitchen fire. Of course you can burn 
particular woods that cause more smoke or burn them in such a way that 
they create more smoke if you have a special smoke room compared to 
using your kitchen.

Hanging meat in the smoke would seem to keep away the bugs while the 
meat is drying, as well.
>
> I think, for what you're looking for, we would need a period book on
> pig farming for a really detailed description.
Okay, that is one possiblity.
So, smoke can be used to preserve meat, can it also be used to preserve 
grains or vegetables? Was it?
Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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