meat-smoked-msg - 1/14/08
Medieval smoked meats. Smoking meats.
NOTE: See also the files: canning-msg, food-storage-msg, pickled-foods-msg stockfish-msg, pickled-meats-msg, roast-meats-msg, ham-msg.
************************************************************************
NOTICE -
This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.
This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.
The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.
Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).
Thank you,
Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
************************************************************************
From: "gabrial" <gabrial at prysm.net>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Smoked salmon SCA feast
Date: 8 Jul 1997 19:30:33 GMT
> I have a few questions:
>
> How think of meat and salmon to you use?
> How long do I smoke it?
> How do you store it after you smoke it?
>
> Any other tips for making smoked products for Pensic?
There is a Web ring called the Smoke Ring I believe and one of the sites
has a page about smoking salmon, I checked it out once as I was going to
try it.. <but never did> But it tells all about it, I believe that I
found the ring by searching yahoo for bbq sauces.. if you have problems
finding it, mail me and i'll give it a shot after I get off work.
gabrial
From: rmorrisson at aol.com (RMorrisson)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Smoked salmon SCA feast
Date: 21 Jul 1997 00:56:51 GMT
Greetings from Myfanwy!
My lord has been making smoked salmon (and occasionally poultry) for
events and for Pennsic for a number of years. He *always* cooks things
thoroughly afterwards -- 10 minutes per inch of thickness for the fish
(don't know the oven temp) and an hour at I think 400 degrees F. for the
birds (generally game hens).
Basically, the fish is soaked in a saltwater and sugar brine with a bunch
of spices and white wine and soy sauce, overnight in the fridge, then
smoked for some length of time (usually 4-6 hours for the fish, then
brought inside and cooked. (The brine recipe came with the smoker -- yes,
we know soy sauce isn't period in Europe, but we haven't found a period
brine recipe anywhere yet).
Incidently, there is a reference in _Fast and Feast_ to the use of alder
wood for smoking fish in period.
Lady Myfanwy ferch Rhiannon
mka Ruth Morrisson
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 16:57:14 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Smoking Questions
Kea ErisDottir wrote:
> In addition, I have plans to built and make an attempt to run some kind of
> small smoke house. I would love information on what we actually know about
> period methods and structures so that i may build something and play with
> the fire :) :) :)
This is a tough one. We know that, for instance, Smithfield hams from
Virginia were made from some time in the 17th century, with little or no
change in the process. It's a pretty safe bet that smokehouses existed
in period. Unfortunately there are few written accounts (in fact, none
that I'm aware of, but I'm trying to hedge my bets here ; ) ) of
smokehouse operation. What we do have are recipes for various smoked
foods, from ancient Roman sources like Cato the Elder and Apicius, and
later sources like Sir Hugh Plat. They all describe smoking meats over
an all-purpose cooking fire, and by hanging sausages up in the chimney,
in the case of Plat. Obviously this suggests that these recipes aren't
intended for mass production. I seem to have misplaced my copy of Le
Menagier de Paris, so I can't tell you if there's a description of the
smoking process there.
Much as I hate to do it, I recommend you check some modern sources on
the subject. Apart from the occasional suggestion that some kind of
anti-oxidant or preservative other than salt be included in some of the
pre-smoking cures, at least we have a fair sense that the modern process
is pretty similar to the period one in most cases, but also probably
safer in the long run. Generally you know when something has been cured
and smoke-dried enough when insects don't try to land on it (smoke tars
repel them), and when it has lost a certain amount of water weight
(generally about half, in the case of meats).
Adamantius
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 00:08:54 -0400
From: "Robert Newmyer" <rnewmyer at epix.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Ready to smoke!
Sorry no recipes but I have found a good source for smoking and
sausage-making supplies:
The Sausagemaker
1500 Clinton Street, Bldg. 123
Buffalo, NY 14206
Phone: 716-824-6510
Also this site sells smoking chips, sounds very interesting.
Woodbridge and Vintage Barrel Chips - made exclusively from recycled 100%
American French Oak wine barrels, which for years have been used in the
aging of fine wines.
http://www.woodbridgechips.com/
Griffith Allt y Genlli
Bob Newmyer
rnewmyer at epix.net
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 06:02:54 -0500
From: Maddie Teller-Kook <meadhbh at io.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Ready to smoke!
When ever I smoke meat, I use either hickory or mesquite chunks that are
well soaked to produce lots of smoke.. I put a pan of water under the
meat to help keep it moist and also to flavor the meat. I've used wine
or beer with herbs (usually fresh rosemary, oregano, thyme, etc). I
have also just taken large twigs of rosemary and placed them on the
coals. I slow cook the meat (especially brisket) for at least 6-8
hours. This is how its done here in Ansteorra. (aka Texas)
meadhbh
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 08:05:51 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Par Leijonhufvud <parlei at algonet.se>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Sweet jerky recipe
On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Korrin S DaArdain wrote:
> A "li'l smoker" or a dehydrator uses heat that will "cook" the meat. My
> dehydrator uses the maximum setting of 145F for making jerky. I think a
> smoker would be even hotter (Don't know, Don't have one). My book on
> dried foods says that 140F is the minimum heat required for the first 3
> to 4 hours and that would likely kill the nasty "wee-beastie's".
The temperature depends on whether you want to dry-smoke the meat for
longer lasting, or smoke it as a method of cooking. The latter can be at
higher temperatures, while the former must be at low temps (about what
you give, I'd say).
/UlfR
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 14:58:46 -0400
From: "Nick Sasso" <njs at mccalla.com>
Subject: SC - Gas Grill Smoking (long)
Niccolo wrote:
On a different subject, I have had great success recently with
smoking on my gas grill. I did 12 # of pork shoulder as well as 12 # of pork
sausage that I stuffed using the Le Menagier 'recipe'. It took about 3
hours to hot smoke the sausages and another 4 hours for the pork hunks (too
small a grill to do all at once). Apple smoke is the bomb for pork!!
<<<<<SNIP>>>>>
Sounds delicious. How did you smoke them on the grill?
Al Vostro e al Servizio del Sogno
Lucretzia
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lady Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia | mka Tina Nevin
Goode Lady,
I am most pleased to offer what I have learned in using modern grilling equipment to smoke meats and anything else one wants to smoke: peppers, crawdads, watermelon, Moors, Jesuits, etc.
items needed: grill thermometer, food, gas grill with at least two burners, wood chips, aluminum foil or smoker box, disposable aluminum baking pan that will fit in half of grill, boiling water, meat thermometer.
The key is indirect heating setup. On my gas grill, I have a right and left burner. This is so terribly convenient, and can still be done with front and back burner elements with some effort. You only use one burner (on mine it was the one on the left as it is the one that goes right to the gas), and the food is on the grill away from the heating element.
1) Put the disposable aluminum roasting/baking pan rectangular in shape on the side of the grill I will call COLD. The burner will not be lit on that side. Fill it with boiling water. . . it must be hot water or the grill heat will be sucked up in heating the water rather than you food. This should be checked periodically to keep water in as it is the heat regulator that keeps your grill from making charcoal.
2) Turn on your one burner on the HOT side on high and let it heat the grill for 15 minutes (your milage may vary).
3) While grill is heating, prepare the wood chips. You have two options to maximize the smoke from your chips: a. soak 2 cups chips for twenty minutes in water to cover and wrap in small package of aluminum foil with several air/smoke holes poked in. . . place this close to heat element, right on the rock grate or whatever is down under food grate; b. place 2 cups dry woodchips in same aluminum package and place on the cooking grill on the HOT side. Either method will keep the wood from burning up and produce a slow smolder that gives lots of smoke. I recommend Apple or Hickory for most meats. You will want about 1 gallon of wood chips (no idea how many cubic inches that is, sorry).
4) When the grill is preheated, turn the burner down to medium or so and put the food to be smoked on the COLD side over the water pan. You want to keep the temperature around 200-220F (use your grill thermometer to keep it in this range) in order to move the food exterior through the danger zone quickly enough and still slow cook your meat (the water vapor keeps the environment moist). after about the first 45 minutes I add a wood chip package to the HOT side of the grill grate, same level as food (or below the grate if using wet chips). It can take a few minutes for smoke to start (10 or so).
5) Add a new wood package about every 45 minutes when smoke begins to thin. My 12 at of link sausages were on three levelrack and smoked about 3 1/2 hours. Your meat thermometer will be indispensable for smoking meats. Check the interneal temperatures for doneness. The three racks of spare ribs were about 4 hours (dry rub and apple smoked). Large, thick pieces of meat will need far longer times.
These are the fundamentals of smoking on gas grills. Same principles apply when using charcoal or wood, just doifferent applications like banking the coals and putting the soaked chips and/or chunks directly on the coals. An interesting link on the web is http://barbecuen.com/ It offers a wide range of reading on cooking and equipment.
I hope this has been of help in getting started. There is lots more to discuss what with gelatinization of callogen tissues, moiture retention and saucing. . .oh my!!
niccolo difrancesco
Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 10:24:25 -0500
From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - RE: Period cookshop at Pennsic?
The question is asked: >>>What is the volume
you can expect from such a rotisserie? You can
only cook how many chickens at once. And if
you serve half-chickens how many is this? Even
if you can cook 12 chickens at once, giving 24
servings, they take a while to cook. I don't think
this is feasible, although the idea is nice.<<<
The way the large numbers of chickens/ whatever
to cook for large numbers of people is being handled
in a very different way at Glaedenfeld Centre. We are
building a Scandinavian late period smokehouse (at
least the folks who designed it say it is period, I haven't
seen the docs on it yet) to cook as many as we need.
The fellow who came up with this builds period saunas
and happened to mention that they used similar structures
for cooking. I jumped on him for details rather quickly.
The one we are considering (after I ok it as reasonably
period) will have two chambers each about the size of
one of the HC access port-o-johns. One will be for slow
smoke foods like hams, sausages, traditional smokehouse
stuff. The other will be running much hotter and will have
hanging racks/ spits for lots and lots of birds and pierced
racks for things like whole trout or salmon. A drip pan will
cover most of the tile floor. This would cook exactly like the
yuppified smokers you can get at any Gaulmart.
I think that this kind of setup at Pennsic would be ideal.
With spit roasting you often get dry meat on the outside
and half cooked on the inside when you are dealing with
any quantities due to the unevenness of the heat. The
wet heat of the smoke will cook very evenly and when one is
done, they all are. You should be able to cook 200 or more
birds in one of these at a time without the problems of
an open flame and having to turn everything constantly.
It works largely like a convection oven with smoke added.
If you are cooking all the same fowl, you should have a
drip pan full of fats and juices for seasoning/ flavouring
rice or something as well. I think this method of cooking
would be extremely suited for Pennsic type cooking. Using
apple or pear wood would make some yummy birds and it
is mundane enough (but period) to appeal to most folks.
Akim Yaroslavich
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 07:18:41 -0400
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period smoke houses?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
> What do we know about period smoke houses? Do we have any still
> existing ones? Or diagrams, pictures or illuminations? Do we have
> any written information on them that might, for instance, tell us
> which woods they used or preferred to use?
>
> I know we have records from the 19th and 18th centuries. We have a
> re-created farm community here called Pioneer Farms, which has one.
At the risk of giving what appears to be a maddeningly frustrating
non-answer, I'll point out that much of the culture, overall, of the
earliest settlements of the US in places like Virginia, has remained
largely unchanged (at least, certain aspects of it) from 17th-century
England. I suspect some of the smokehouse designs seen in The Foxfire
Books are pretty similar to designs used in period.
On the other hand, to add to the mix, it also seems likely that there
might have been fewer dedicated smokehouses in period Europe than
there were in early American settlements, or even today, both because
salting was so necessary a preserving process that many foods were
salted and left at that. These people were probably not smoking their
foods for flavor, generally, and I doubt the particular climate and
insect population (the creosote layer acquired by smoked meats is an
insect repellant) justified using fuel for such a frivolous purpose.
Surely the period recipe corpus, in general, refers frequently to
salted and, less frequently, pickled, meats, and not often, if at
all, to smoked foods. In fact, if you look at recipes which go into
detail on ways to keep the smoke off a given food, it suggests that
at least some period cultures might have viewed smoky meats as
something to be avoided.
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.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 11:32:00 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period smoke houses?
To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Taking a quick look at some of the online references to smoking meat, I
think that no one has taken a serious look at the subject of when, where and
how meat was smoked between the late Roman Empire and the Early Modern
Periods. What do we know about the subject? What are the references?
Charlemagne's Capitulary De Vilis contains a reference to smoked meat and
the inventory of Asnapium, one of Charlemagne's estates, references 10 sides
from last year which may be salted or smoked meats. A kitchen is referenced
in the inventory, but no smokehouse. Since the separate buildings are
inventoried, if there is a smokehouse present, it is probably and adjunct of
the kitchen.
A quick run through half a dozen primary sources on households hasn't
yielded any more. This may turn into an interesting research project.
Bear
> <clipped>
> Surely the period recipe corpus, in general, refers frequently to
> salted and, less frequently, pickled, meats, and not often, if at
> all, to smoked foods. In fact, if you look at recipes which go into
> detail on ways to keep the smoke off a given food, it suggests that
> at least some period cultures might have viewed smoky meats as
> something to be avoided.
>
> 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.
>
> Adamantius
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 10:10:57 -0700
From: "Lorenz Wieland" <lorenz_wieland at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period smoke houses?
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Decker, Terry D. wrote:
> Taking a quick look at some of the online references to smoking meat,
> I think that no one has taken a serious look at the subject of when,
> where and how meat was smoked between the late Roman Empire and the
> Early Modern Periods. What do we know about the subject? What are
> the references?
I'm starting work on a Beowulf-themed feast, and I've found at least one
reconstructed Viking-era smokehouse:
http://www.foteviken.se/engelsk/art_english/e_viking_art17e.htm
A few other non-primary sources (the primaries they reference are in Swedish
and Norwegian) seem to agree that this design is correct for early period
Northern Europe.
-Lorenz
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 18:37:01 -0400
From: Alex Clark <alexbclark at pennswoods.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period smoke houses?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
At 10:54 PM 9/10/2003 -0500, Stefan wrote:
> I thought some of the fish was smoked. Or was this just dried? . . .
According to Janet Hinson's translation of _Le Menagier de Paris_, salmon
should be smoked; (p. M-28) James Prescott's translation of the very
similar entry for salmon in _le Viandier_ agrees about smoking, though the
next phrase seems to disagree with Hinson's translation (30). _Le Menagier_
also says that pork sausage should be smoked for four days or more. (M-44)
This is from the odds and ends that I just reread today; I don't know if
there might be other foods in these books that were also supposed to be
smoked.
(The phrase after the bit about smoking is "and leave the backbone in for
roasting" in Hinson's _Menagier_ and "keep the chine for roasting" in
Prescott's _Viandier_.)
Hinson, Janet (translator). _Le Menagier de Paris_. Part of _A Collection
of Medieval and Renaissance Cookbooks_. Cariadoc, 1988.
Prescott, James (translator). _le Viandier de Taillevent_. Alfarhaugr,
1988.
Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 23:00:16 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period smoke houses?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
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 t