Smokehouse

A smokehouse is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.^[1] Even when people in some rural American areas during the twentieth century, notably where electricity still was not available, did not use smoke, they nevertheless called such a building--typically a small square unpainted wooden structure in the back yard--the "smoke house." Hogs were slaughtered after the onset of cold weather, and hams and other pork products were salted and hung up or placed on a shelf to last into the following summer. Eleanor1944 (talk) 02:47, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

History

Traditional smokehouses served both as meat smokers and to store the meats, often for groups and communities of people. Food preservation occurred by salt curing and extended cold smoking for two weeks or longer.^[1] Smokehouses were often secured to prevent animals and thieves from accessing the food.^[1]

Design and use

Traditionally, a smokehouse is a small enclosed outbuilding often with a vent, a single entrance, no windows, and frequently has a gabled or pyramid style roof. Communal and commercial smokehouses are larger than those that served a single residence or estate. The use of slightly warmed, dry air from a very slow hardwood fire will ensure the proper drying of meats.^[2]

Gallery

A wood burning stove at Benton's Country Hams smokehouse, where country hams, bacon, and sausage are slow smoked for many hours.
A smoke house at Boone Hall Plantation.
Fjordling Smokehouse. This smokehouse can be found at Dunstable Farm, Salisbury. The outbuilding shown is typical of this Wiltshire valley.
Medieval smokehouse at the fishing village of Walraversijde, ca. 1465^[3]