Behind the home my dad grew up in, and lives in today, my grandfather built a smokehouse around 78 years ago. Every winter, when the weather got extremely cold, my grandparents, my dad and his siblings, and their farm hands would kill 10-12 hogs – 3-4 at a time. I’ll spare you the details (you can thank me later).
My grandmother’s job was to smoke the meat. After the meat had been salted down for 21 days, she would take it out, dip it into warm water to get the salt out of it, then hang it in the smokehouse on poles. She would smoke the meat really slowly for two weeks, keeping the green wood barely smoldering. She wouldn’t let the fire blaze up or have any heat to it. She kept it going just enough to cure the meat and give it that good smoked flavor.
Here’s how she described life with the smokehouse: [click to continue…]
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