[Sca-cooks] period smoke houses?

[david friedman]

Stefan asked about smokehouses and Adamantius replied:

>...
>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.

Here are a few relevant bits from Le Menagier:

To Salt Beef Tongues. In the right season for salting, take a 
quantity of beef tongues and parboil them a little, then take them 
out and skin them, then salt them one after another, and lay them in 
salt for eight days or ten, then hang them in the fireplace, leaving 
them there for the winter: then hang them in a dry place, for one 
year or two or three or four.
-------
In Gascony, when it begins to get cold, they buy the tongues, parboil 
and skin them, and then salt them one on top of another in a salting 
tub and leave then eight days, then hang them in the chimney all 
winter and in summer, as above, dry; and they will keep thus for ten 
years. And then they are cooked in water and wine if you wish, and 
eaten with mustard.
------
To Make Sausages. When you have killed your pig, take some chops, 
first from the part they call the filet, and then take some chops 
from the other side and some of the best fat, as much of the one as 
of the other, enough to make as many sausages as you need; and have 
it finely chopped and ground by a pastry-cook. Then grind fennel and 
a little fine salt, and then take your ground fennel, and mix 
thoroughly with a quart of powdered spices; then mix your meat, your 
spices and your fennel thoroughly together, and then fill the guts, 
that is to say, the small gut. (And know that the guts of an old 
porker are better for this purpose than those of a young pig, because 
they are larger.) And after this, smoke them for four days or more, 
and when you want to eat them, put them in hot water and bring just 
to boiling, and then put on the grill.
------

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook