Project Smoke by Steven Raichlen

Book Preface

A Crash Course in smoking

There are many places I could start this book. On Bornholm, Denmark, where at the height of the smoked herring industry in the 1930s, this small island in the Baltic Sea boasted more than 120 active smokehouses, their whitewashed brick chimneys still punctuating the landscape today.

Or in the Italian Alps, where salt-cured hams are smoked with juniper wood for two weeks to make a smoky prosciutto called speck. A similar scene takes place in Surrey, Virginia, where the Edwards family has been smoking hams since 1926.

Or on Islay Island in Scotland, where barley is smoked over peat to make Scotch whisky, or on the rugged hillsides around Oaxaca, Mexico, where agave cactus hearts are smoke-roasted in fire pits to prepare a unique smoky spirit called mezcal.

Or closer to home, at the American Royal World Series of Barbecue in Kansas City, where for three days and nights, barbecue teams from all over the world—more than 600—gather to compete, sending fragrant clouds of wood smoke over Arrowhead Stadium.

But the best place to begin might be my backyard, where as I write these words, salmon, scallops, and beef jerky—not to mention ricotta, mustard, and hot sauce—are smoking in a cedar smokehouse I built with my neighbor Roger Becker.

Smoke. Few words have such power to make you hungry. Think of some of the world’s most pleasurable foods: ham, bacon, pastrami. All owe their distinctive flavor and character to smoke.

Smoke is the subject of this book. Hot-smoked foods like kippers and ham. Cold-smoked foods like mozzarella affumicata and Scandinavian lax. American barbecue, from Texas brisket to Carolina pulled pork to Kansas City ribs. Smoked foods from around Planet Barbecue like Jamaican jerk chicken and Chinese tea-smoked duck.

So you might ask: How does this book differ from all my other Barbecue! Bible cookbooks? While it’s true that most of my books touch on smoking, particularly as practiced in the American barbecue belt, this book focuses exclusively on smoke—from smoked meats and seafood to smoked cocktails, condiments, and desserts. You’ll learn how to smoke the icons and the foods you’d never dream of smoking, including cheesecake, ice cream, mayonnaise, butter, and ice.

So fire up your smokers. Project Smoke is about to begin.