Smoking Food

I am a big fan of smoked foods, particularly meat, as I just love those smoky flavours, and although smoking was developed as a way of preserving food, I think it is more about the wonderful flavours it creates. Originally – going back to ancient times – people used to hang their kill to dry in their caves. Since there was no way out for the smoke from the fire, they noticed that both the flavour and the preserving qualities were improved by the smoke ... and so it began!

Since then, smoking foods, usually over wood smoke, has become popular in many regions of the world and has developed commercially. In particular, smokehouses were built on farms to preserve meat – well away from the farm buildings to avoid fire spreading if an accident happened – and on the coast, to be handy for the fishermen landing their catch.