smoking

smoking, in food processing, the exposure of cured meat and fish products to smoke for the purposes of preserving them and increasing their palatability by adding flavour and imparting a rich brown colour. The drying action of the smoke tends to preserve the meat, though many of the chemicals present in wood smoke (e.g., formaldehyde and certain alcohols) are natural preservatives as well.

Smoking is one of the oldest of food preservation methods, probably having arisen shortly after the development of cooking with fire. The practice attained high levels of sophistication in several cultures, notably the smoking of fish in Scandinavia and northwestern North America and the production of smoked hams in Europe and the United States. Interest in smoking meats, which had declined during the mid-20th century owing to the popularity of chemical preservatives, was revived late in the century by the so-called natural or health food movement.

Whether done on a commercial or home scale, the smoking technique involves hanging the meat or placing it on racks in a chamber designed to contain the smoke. Commercial smokehouses, usually several stories high, often use steampipes to supplement the heat of a natural sawdust fire. Hickory sawdust is the preferred fuel. Whatever the size of the smoking operation, it is imperative that a hardwood fire be used. The softwood of conifers such as spruce and pine contains pitch, which produces a film on the meat and imparts a bitter taste. Generally, smokehouse temperatures vary from 109 to 160 °F (43 to 71 °C), and smoking periods vary from as short as a few hours to as long as several days, depending on the type of meat and its moisture content. After smoking, the meat is chilled as rapidly as possible and cut and wrapped for the retail trade.

Britannica Quiz

A World of Food Quiz

In the United States, pork and beef hams, bacon bellies, and sausages are the most common commercially smoked meats. However, amateurs using ordinary smoke ovens or adapting barbecue grills to the purpose have successfully used the smoking technique to flavour and preserve not only meat, fowl, and fish but also cheeses, nuts and seeds, hard-boiled eggs, and berries, as well as the variety meats including heart, tongue, and liver.

In order to shorten the production process, commercial meats are sometimes artificially “smoked” by dipping them in a solution of preservative chemicals or by painting them with such a solution. However, because this procedure involves no natural drying action, it has practically no preservative effect.