Do You Smell Smoke??

[Henry]

Hi All,

Back when I was a youngster, living on Fairfield Ridge, I remember coming home from the one room school I attended, believe it may have been around this time of year and having this wonderful smell drift over the whole area.  I knew then, Dad had started to smoke the Easter Ham.  We used to get molasses in wooden barrels for the cows.  I remember Dad used to take a pail of it ever so often and spread it in front of the cows and they used to lap it up in no time flat.  Well, once the barrel was empty, dad would remove the lid, clean it and then make a couple of holes in the bottom.  He would insert a wire through the holes and hang the hams inside, turn the barrell upside down and place it on some stones to lift it just a bit and use corn cobs to smoke the Easter Ham.  I don't know how long he did this for, but remember him after a certain period of time taking a small sharp knife and cutting a small wedge and tasting it to see if it was smoked enough.  All the time this ham was smoking, that wonderful smell just permeated the whole ridge.  Now my memory is very vague as to just how he did this, but I do know he used corn cobs, never saw any flames, just smoke and it took quite a while.

I thought I would find something on the Internet, but was unable to locate anything.  Although I doubt anyone does this anymore, must be someone that remembers more details than I do.

In later years, we used to bring the hams and bacon down to the local store where McKenzie's used to do it for us.  Don't remember the cost to do it, but am sure it wasn't much.

Also, while I'm on the subject, my wife likes blood pudding/blood sausage, which we used to be able to buy at our local stores and super markets.  My mother and my wife's mother used to make it, however, I don't eat it.  Checked down at Hannafords the other day and they told me that Mckenzie's used to be their supplier, but they no longer make it.

[David Shea]

Henry:

There is a book in the Westford Library that talks about how to do this with a wooden barrel.  The title is " How to live on nothiing and have everything that you need", the author was a St. Albans native who moved to Addison County with her family.  She tried to live a selfsufficient lifestyle by canning, raising their own meat and growing vegetables ect.

She expained that a fire pit was dug some distance from the barrel to keep the smoke cool as you didn't want to cook the meat just flavor it.  A trench was dug in the ground to act as a flue to  connect the fire pit with the barrel.  A hardwood fire was started in the pit using woods like apple, oak, hickory, corn cobs or any other wood that  provided a pleasing flavor.  The pit and trench were both covered.  The pit was covered so that the fire would smolder.  The trench was covered by a piece of metal or old roofing tin and then soil.  It was important that the meat in the barrel didn't touch each other, ( do not remember why ) holes where put in the barrel to allow the amount of smoke in the barrel to be controlled.

As I say the book is in the Westford library and covers many topics, like raising livestock, growing vegtables, beekeeping, candle making, and other things that people as a rule no longer do as a part of daily life. 

Hope this helps you.

David Shea