Smoking

Smoking is an ancient technique of treating and preserving foods with smoke produced by the slow smouldering of wood chips or sawdust. The smoke permeates meat, fish, cheese, or vegetables, giving them an inimitable aroma, a golden-amber colour, a special flavour, and, combined with salting and cooling, helping to extend their keeping time.

The preserving effect of smoking is threefold: the smoke itself contains compounds with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, the high temperature of hot smoking destroys microbes, and the accompanying drying removes the moisture in which they multiply. Two main methods are distinguished. Hot smoking (about 60–120 °C) cooks the product quickly, in hours, making it succulent and tender, but with a shorter keeping time. Cold smoking (about 20–30 °C) lasts many hours or days, not cooking the product thermally but only permeating it with smoke and drying it — thus cold-smoked (pre-cured) sausages, ham, and fish are made, which keep far longer. It should be stressed that cold smoke alone neither cooks the product nor makes it safe to eat: it must be combined with proper curing (salting) and kept refrigerated, since the low temperatures fall within the range where dangerous bacteria can grow. The aroma depends on the kind of wood: alder, beech, oak, and fruit trees give different shades (conifers are unsuitable because of their resin). Smoking is deeply rooted in the Ukrainian tradition. It is a technique that combines the practical need to keep food with the art of giving it a luxurious flavour.