The truth about smoking

Foods have been preserved by smoke-curing since the era of Neolithic man. During the Middle Ages people relied upon heavily smoked and salted foods to survive through the lean winters and into the spring. It involved giving the food a high salt content (up to 15%), smoking them for days or even weeks, resulting in salty, tough and somewhat unpalatable foods.

Rapid growth of infrastructure in the 19th century revolutionised the distribution of perishable goods meaning that a long shelf life was no longer essential. So saw the decline of heavily salted and acridly smoky food and instead food lovers relished the arrival of new era of smoking. Instead of preservation, smoking was now used to create distinctive tastes and textures, using different woods to impart subtle flavour differences to foods such as cheeses, a wide range of fish including salmon, trout and eel, red meats such as venison, pork and hams, lamb and beef, poultry such as duck and chicken and wild foods such as gamebirds. Europeans traditionally favour smoking over a variety of hardwoods, while here in Britain it is generally oak.

Experienced smokers know that different species of tree and different sizes of wood product will result in small flavour differences, giving scope to refine ones recipe. Traditionally chippings and sawdust’s are mainly used to create the smouldering fires; however other systems can be used. In the 1950’s Richard Pinney of Pinney’s of Orford developed a unique system of burning whole oak logs – a tradition still used today at their smokehouses in Butley Creek, where trout, mackerel, cod roe, salmon, kippers and eel are among the products smoked every day for the shop and restaurant.

Skill and finesse is essential to keep control over temperature, moisture and smoke intensity to create consistently tasty smoked foods.

There are two methods for smoking. Hot smoking is a relatively short process, only several hours long, the food is held directly over the fire or in an enclosure that holds the heat which cooks and smokes the foods at high temperatures (over 90 degrees). River Farm in Cambridge is a traditional smokery using hot smoke over oak chippings in hand fired brick kilns to create distinctive flavours in their hot-smoked foods including duck, pigeon andtrout. A real delicacy is the eel which is hot smoked for 6 hours.

In comparison cold smoking is a much longer, gentler process in which there is no cooking just curing by smoke alone. It is ideal for salmon, cheeses and hams. The process can be hours or even days long; the smoke is passed around and over the food held at room temperature in a separate chamber. This process is used at River House Smokery at Iken near Snape to create their organic oak smoked salmon. Depending on conditions the salmon can remain in the smokehouse for up to 72 hours where the slow, smouldering smoke eventually provides its distinctive flavour.

It has been suggested that smoking can be used to cover up a multitude of food sins such as staleness in fish. This is false. Remember it takes first class produce to make a first class product!

To find out about more about fantastic smokeries in the region and the products available then visit our website.

Julie West is Tastes of Anglia’s Chief Executive, the region’s food promotion group.
T: 01473 785883