The smoking of meat must be one of the oldest forms of food preparation. It can be assumed that the first incidence of food smoking took place shortly after man learned how to start fires and control them. There is strong evidence that a hominid known as Peking Man used controlled fire about 500,000 years ago. So far, there is no evidence of man “discovering” fire earlier than that. Based on this, it appears that food smoking may have a history of about half a million years.
The first people to smoke food may have built a fire to keep themselves warm, to keep man-eating carnivores at bay, or to drive away annoying insects. While gnawing raw meat and enjoying the fire, someone may have thrown a bone very near it. It is not difficult to imagine that the people might have been attracted by the aroma of the scraps of meat roasting on the bone, and that one of them may have grabbed the bone and devoured those smoke-flavored scraps. This is only one possible scenario for the origin of smoked meat. We will never know the exact details regarding the first event, but it is obvious that man acquired a taste for cooked meat and the incidental smoke flavoring imparted by wood fires. The smoky flavor was appreciated to the extent that man eventually made a special effort to make sure that a strong smoky flavor would penetrate into the foods.
Along the way, probably about the 13th century BC, the ancestors of the modern Chinese began using salt to preserve food. In the Western world, the Greeks and the Romans were known to have used salt for curing meat as early as 200 BC. These peoples discovered that salt, often used together with drying and smoking, was a great help in preserving food. How wonderful it must have been to be able to preserve food for the lean times—salty though it was! Having this food enabled people to survive; not having it could mean death.
Preserving food by salting or drying, or both, has continued into the present. For ages, these methods were the most common ways to preserve food. If the food was meat or fish, it was often smoked in addition to drying and salting. In the old days, almost every farmstead in North America and Europe had a smokehouse. Then, in the 1800s, the technology of canning foods (originally developed in France) began to spread throughout much of the world. Furthermore, the old-fashioned icebox was coming into general use at about the same time. Later, the electric refrigerator and home freezer appeared. Constantly improving transportation systems throughout the United States and the world allowed the rapid transport of fresh meats. In the U.S., a well-to-do farmer with his Model T Ford often opted to sell his livestock to the meatpackers, and then drove into town to buy fresh meat as needed. This eliminated the chore of preserving and smoking the meat, and it allowed the farmer and his family to eat more fresh meat.
All of these developments caused a rapid decline in the number of people who did their own smoking. Commercial meat processors began to produce the most popular smoked items such as ham, bacon, and sausage, but the use of liquid smoke flavoring often replaced true smoking. The salting, smoking, and drying of meat, poultry, and fish by individuals was beginning to be more of a hobby than a necessary chore. Nevertheless, numerous people remained in love with the exquisite flavor of properly smoked bacon, ham, pastrami, salmon, sturgeon, poultry, sausage, and the like. These people kept food smoking alive.
After World War II, people in North America had more leisure time. Many people began to use some of this time to barbecue foods outdoors. They liked the slightly smoky flavor of barbecued foods, and some wanted an even smokier flavor. This led them to put a cover over the grill so it would function as a hot smoker. A number of people made their own equipment, and they called it a smoke cooker. These smoke cookers usually operated on charcoal and had tight-fitting lids. Food was placed inside, then exposed to heat from the charcoal and smoke from the hardwood that was placed on, or near, the charcoal.
In the 1970s, a few companies began to market portable smokers and smoke cookers. These small smokers (operating on electricity, propane, or charcoal) did much to popularize the smoking of food as a hobby. A rank amateur could buy one of these units and produce some delicious smoked food the same day. However, these ready-to-use units do have a few limitations. To overcome them, homemade smokers have been built in every design imaginable—and a few with designs unimaginable.
The smoking of foods has now become a recognized hobby rather than a necessity or some kind of curious endeavor. However, despite the long history of food smoking, the smoking of foods as a hobby is rather new: It became popular in the 1970s. Being a new hobby, innovation is not only possible—it is inevitable. As time passes, the useful elements of the food-smoking tradition will be combined with modern techniques developed by hobbyists such as you and me.
I grew up in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. From time to time, my father would buy a small amount of smoked salmon for the family. (I am talking about hot-smoked salmon, or what some people call kippered salmon.) However, because it was expensive, we did not eat it frequently, and we never got our fill of it. Occasionally, it was a bit salty, but we always enjoyed it.
The opportunity to buy smoked salmon disappeared in 1980 when I moved to southern Japan with my wife and children. The hot-smoked salmon sold in the Pacific Northwest was not available there. However, a few years later, my sister, Patricia, who lives in Oregon, came to Japan for a visit. In her suitcase were some steelheads (large rainbow trout that migrate to the sea) that she had smoked for me. That smoked fish was excellent! Nevertheless, I did not question her about how she had smoked it—I thought (erroneously) that hickory was necessary for the smoking of all foods, and I was sure that hickory trees do not grow in Japan.
No more than two weeks after my sister had returned to the United States, some smoked trout were given to me by a Japanese acquaintance who enjoys camping and fishing. He had tried to smoke his catch of trout, and he wanted to know my opinion. He had obtained the directions, he explained, from a Japanese fishing magazine that he reads regularly. The trout were excellent, and I asked him where he had gotten the hickory to smoke them. He had never heard the word hickory! He had used a species of oak that is quite common in Japan. Mr. Nakamura, my acquaintance, was kind enough to explain how he had brined and smoked the fish. He showed me his smoker. It was a discarded kitchen cabinet with a pan of charcoal at the bottom; ventilation and heat control were accomplished by leaving the cabinet doors slightly ajar. He generated smoke by throwing chunks of wet oak on the charcoal.
Well, after seeing that, I was convinced that I, too, could learn how to smoke foods. I asked my brother in the United States to send me a copy of every book that he could find on food smoking. He was able to find only two books that contained information about the subject. Thus, about 20 years ago, I began this fascinating hobby.
The information contained in the books that I got from the United States (and in a few others that I was able to obtain several years later) was very helpful regarding the overall smoking process. I have learned many things from those books. Nevertheless, after hundreds of smoking sessions over the years, I found that a number of the techniques I had developed—especially for the curing of meat and fish—were not even mentioned in any of those books. These techniques allow me to make great products with a consistently excellent taste. They also allow me to make new products with a very high probability of complete satisfaction on the first try. I am sure that these easily mastered techniques will work for you, also. You can master smoking without being a culinary artist.
This book is based on the realization that amateur food smoking (with a few exceptions) is no longer done for the express purpose of food preservation. I assume, for example, that you have neither the need nor the desire for bacon that can be hung from the rafters for one year without spoiling. If my assumption is correct, then what you need is information on how to smoke things the modern way: how to impart just the right amount of smoke flavor, just the right amount of seasoning, and— very importantly—just the right amount of salt. Since you are probably not a culinary professional, you may require step-by-step instructions that tell you what to do, that tell you how to do it, and—in some cases— that tell you why you are doing it. It is likely that you have a limited amount of time to devote to this hobby, so a smoking session, normally, should not last more than a day. If this is a reasonably accurate description of your situation and requirements, I believe that the procedures contained in this manual will prove helpful.
Is the smoking of food an art, a science, or a skilled craft? The smoking of food is a skilled craft. A skilled craft employs a collection of special equipment and tools, a body of specialized knowledge, and numerous skills and techniques; usually the goal is to produce the same thing repeatedly, making improvements along the way. That is exactly what we are doing. Smoking food is indeed a skilled craft.