A Brief History of Food Smoking 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. o far, there is no evidence of man !discovering! fire earlier than that. "ased 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. $hile gnawing raw meat and en%oying 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. $e will never know the e&act details regarding the first event, but it is obvious that man ac'uired a taste for cooked meat and the incidental smoke flavoring imparted by wood fires. The smoky flavor was appreciated to the e&tent that man eventually made a special effort to make sure that a strong smoky flavor would penetrate into the foods. (long the way, probably about the )*th century ".+. the ancestors of the modern +hinese began using salt to preserve food. In the $estern world, the ,reeks and the -omans were known to have used salt for curing meat as early as .00 ".+. These peoples discovered that salt, often used together with drying and smoking was a great help in preserving food. /ow wonderful it must have been to be able to preserve food for the lean limes0sally though it was1 I laving this food enabled people to survive2 not having it could mean death. Food Smoking in Modern Times Preserving food by salting or drying, or both, has continued into the present. 3or 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 4orth (merica and 5urope had a smokehouse. Then, in the )600s, the technology of canning foods 7originally developed in 3rance8 began to spread throughout much of the world. 3urthermore, the old#fashioned icebo& was coming into general use at about the same time. 9ater, the electric refrigerator and home free:er appeared. +onstantly improving transportation systems throughout the ;nited tates and the world allowed the rapid transport of fresh meats. In the ;. ., a well# to#do farmer with his Model T 3ord 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.

(ll of these developments caused a rapid decline in the number of people who did their own smoking. +ommercial meat processors began to produce the most popular smoked items such as ham, bacon, and sausage, but the use of li'uid 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. 4evertheless, numerous people remained in love with the e&'uisite flavor of properly smoked bacon, ham, pastrami, salmon, sturgeon, poultry, sausage, and the like. These people kept food smoking alive. (fter $orld $ar II, people in 4orth (merica 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. ( number of people made their own e'uipment, and they called it a smoker cooker. These smoker cookers usually operated on charcoal and had tight#fitting lids. 3ood was placed inside, and then e&posed to heat from charcoal and smoke from the hardwood that was placed on, or near, the charcoal. In the )<=0s, a few companies began to market portable smokers and smoke cookers. These small smokers 7operating on electricity, propane, or charcoal8 did much to populari:e the smoking of food as a hobby. ( rank amateur could buy one of these units and produce some delicious smoked food the same day. /owever, these ready#to#use units do have a few limitations. To overcome them, homemade smokers have been built in every design imaginable0and a few with designs unimaginable. The smoking of foods has now become a recogni:ed hobby rather than a necessity or some kind of curious endeavor. /owever, despite the long history of food smoking, the smoking of foods as a hobby is rather new> It became popular in the )<=0s. "eing a new hobby, innovation is not only possible0it is inevitable. (s time passes, the useful elements of the food#smoking tradition will be combined with modern techni'ues developed by hobbyists such as you and me. About This PDF and My Site I grew up in 3, +(. 3rom time to time, my father would buy a small amount of smoked salmon for the family. 7) am talking about hot#smoked salmon, or what some people call kippered salmon.8 /owever, because it was e&pensive, we did not eat it fre'uently, and we never got our fill of it. ?ccasionally, it was a bit salty, but we always en%oyed it. The opportunity to buy smoked salmon disappeared in .000 when I moved to southern @apan with my wife and children. The hot#smoked salmon sold in the Pacific 4orthwest was not available there. /owever, a few years later, my sister, Patricia, who lives in 3, came to @apan for a visit. In her suitcase were some steelheads 7large rainbow trout that migrate to the sea8 that she had smoked for me. That smoked fish was e&cellent1 4evertheless, I did not 'uestion her about how she had smoked it0I thought 7erroneously8 that hickory was necessary for the smoking of all foods, and I was sure that hickory trees do not grow in @apan. 4o more than two weeks after my sister had returned to the ;nited tates, some smoked trout were given to me by a @apanese ac'uaintance that en%oys camping and fishing. /e had tried to smoke his

catch of trout, and he wanted to know my opinion. /e had obtained the direction, he e&plained, from a @apanese fishing maga:ine that he reads regularly. The trout were e&cellent, and I asked him where he had gotten the hickory to smoke them. /e had never heard the word hickory1 /e had used a species of oak that is 'uite common in @apan. Mr. 4akamura, my ac'uaintance, was kind enough to e&plain how he had brined and smoked the fish. /e showed me his smoker. It was a discarded kitchen cabinet with a pan of charcoal at the bottom2 ventilation and heat control were accomplished by leaving the cabinet doors slightly a%ar. /e generated smoke by throwing chunks of wet oak on the charcoal. $ell, after seeing that. I was convinced that I, too, could learn how to smoke foods. I asked my brother in the ;nited tates to send me a copy of every book that he could find on food smoking. /e was able to find only two books that contained information about the sub%ect. Thus, about .0 years ago, I began this fascinating hobby. The information contained in the books that I got from the ;nited tates 7and in a few others that I was able to obtain several years later8 was very helpful regarding the overall smoking process. I have learned many things from those books. 4evertheless, after hundreds of smoking sessions over the years, I found that a number of the techni'ues I had developed0especially for the curing of meat and fish0were not even mentioned in any of those books. These techni'ues allow me to make great products with a consistently e&cellent 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 techni'ues will work for you, also. Aou can master smoking without being a culinary artist. This PB3 document is based on the reali:ation that amateur food smoking 7with a few e&ceptions8 is no longer done for the e&press purpose of food preservation. I assume, for e&ample, 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 %ust the right amount of smoke flavor, %ust the right amount of seasoning, and0 very importantly 0%ust the right amount of salt. ince you are probably not a culinary professional, you may re'uire step#by#step instructions that tell you what to do, that tell you how to do it, and0in some cases0 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 re'uirements, I believe that the procedures contained in this manual will prove helpful. Is the smoking of food an art, a science, or a skilled craftC /ere at my website> Ra Meat!ero"com, you will find that answer. ( skilled craft employs a collection of special e'uipment and tools, a body of speciali:ed knowledge, and numerous skills and techni'ues2 usually the goal is to produce the same thing repeatedly, making improvements along the way. That is e&actly what we are doing. moking food is indeed a skilled craft.