Smoking process
The process of smoking food involves flavouring, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to the smoke from burning or smouldering plant materials, most often wood. The most common smoked foods are meats and fish, though cheeses, vegetables, and ingredients used to make beverages are often smoked.
Generally, alderwood is the traditional smoking wood in Europe. However, oak and beechis used more these days. Other materials can also be used in the smoking process. For example, Chinese tea-smoking uses a mixture of uncooked rice, sugar, and tea that is heated at the base of a wok. In order to make Scottish Whiskey, peat is burned to dry and smoke the barley malt.
Years ago, farms in the western world had a small building known as the smokehouse. Here different meats could be smoked and stored. Today, many restaurants that specialise in smoked foods still use the name Smokehouse in the title of their place.