mechanics and functions of a smoke house - University of Delaware ...

"I had almost forgot to mention our smoke-houses;
with out them we could not live. Each family
smokes fully one-half their meat, fish, eels; in
short everything we intend to preserve. For,
besides the advantage of preservation it greatly
adds to the flavour of our food; it saves it, besides
from the flies.,,12
He does admit though, that the greatest quantities of smoked meat were
consumed in Virginia and the southern colonies. An important distinction, as
all meat was l1Q1 smoked. Smoking meat was a final, (and optional), step in
the legnthy process of preservation. Smoking the meat was an added
precaution against spoiling, as the hard brown crust formed in smoking
added flavor and kept flys and insects out of the meat,13
The origins of smoking meat are undetermined. Waverly Root and
Richard de Rochemont credit the Powhaten Indians with the device. After
fattening their pigs on peanuts, the Powhatens "smoked their rear legs over
hickory fires, thus presenting man with the technique which would later
produce the Smithfield hams".14 Dorothy Hartley makes no claims, but
informs the reader that meat was smoked in England as early as the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. "Smoking, originally done out-ot-doors over a
smudge fire of wood and trash, was later done in the chimney ...A seperate
smoke-house was very common, and is still used in some districts today.,,15
Germany also contributed to the history of smoked meat with its
Westphalian hams, already renknowned in the eighteenth century, and
prepared in warehouse-like smoke houses. It is likely that all above sources
influenced the Americans in meat preparation, and certainly it is to english
and german example that we owe the introduction ot a seperate structure for
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