Use smoke to save food

Smoke preserves food, both physically and chemically.

It also tastes real good, but you

Knew that part, and so did ancient humans.

There's evidence of neolithic people smoking the animals they hunted, probably with setups not unlike this one, a simple tripod of sticks. But compared to other ancient preservation methods, smoking is probably not the most effective. Salt curing is better, which is why safe smoking usually starts with a salt cure, at least a short one. Salting and smoking both work better if you can start with really thin food. Just imagine I'm cutting this with a sharp flake of rock instead of a fine German steel blade. I'm trying to cut this against the grain so that it won't be so chewy and I'm doing an accordion cut to get long pieces. Long pieces will be easier to drape over the fire.

Meh, good enough for a caveman. Now I'll just cover this salt and leave it for a day, in the refrigerator to be extra safe. Historically, smoke is probably most useful for preserving meat given meat's high pathogen load, but I'm going to try smoking some peaches too, mostly because that sounds really good to me. Might as well give them salt cure as well. The acidity of fruit makes it less hospitable to microorganisms, but at the very least the salt will help accelerate the drying process. 24 hours of osmosis later, and you can see how much water has come out of the meat. The meat feels real stiff as I wash it, that's how much drier it is. Microorganisms love water and hate salt, so we're already halfway to preserving this.

The peach didn't leak as much water, probably because I wasn't able to cut it as thin, not as much surface area. Now, all we need is some smoke. Hey, have we ever covered, like, basic fire building? If you live near trees, you can probably just look on the ground and find some of the original firewood: deadfall. Even on perfectly healthy trees, individual branches die all the time, and then it usually takes years for them to actually fall. They just hang out up in the air drying out, which is crucial. If you were to just chop down a living tree and then try to burn it immediately as firewood, it probably wouldn't work, unless you already had a very hot fire going. There's water inside fresh wood and you would just need so much heat to overcome that. The water absorbs a ton of the energy and it gets in the way of the oxygen that needs to reach the carbon-containing molecules that actually burn.

You'd have to cut it up into logs and then let that pile dry out for at least a year before building a fire with it. Deadfall comes pre-dried. The little square of twigs works for me every time. Throw a pile of dead leaves in the center and ignite with your flint or butane fire stick. The cage of twigs lets in a ton of oxygen to feed the fire, which soon enough spreads from the leaves to the wood. Even though it rained last night and everything here is wet, we still have fire, because what matters most is that the wood is dry on the inside. Surface water evaporates really fast. With fire building, you want to start with small things and then gradually build up — first the paper thin leaves, then little twigs, then some slightly bigger twigs and then little logs.

It takes more heat to ignite something with less surface area, so you build up. Into my tripod I've lashed a grate of sticks — fresh sticks, recently deceased wood. Since they're filled with water that reduces the odds of them catching fire.

That's also why food generally doesn't catch

Fire when you grill it, unless you have a real problem.

We have a different problem here — the slightest breeze pushes the smoke away from the food. I could position the food lower down, but then it would get too hot. I don't want to cook the food, I just want to smoke it and, more importantly, dry it. Drying is certainly the oldest food preservation method, and you can do it well enough by just cutting the food into small pieces and then leaving it out in the hot sun that works.

But what if it's raining? What if you live in a really dense forest? What if you live in a cave and it's not safe to leave? Well then you might think to dry your food by the fire instead. Fire gives you warm dry air that moves, thanks to convection currents. So air by the fire is great for drying things. This is certainly how at least some ancient people discovered smoking. They noticed that food dried by the fire tasted better and lasted longer than food dried in the sun. How did they keep the smoke from blowing away? Well, they might have wrapped up their whole rig with big leaves or animal hides. I'm just using an old painter's tarp and Oh, nice one, Ragusea. Hey, look at that.

As soon as the meat is away from the fire, the flies are on it. Bugs don't like smoke — it impedes their respiration, among other things. I'm willing to bet this is how some other ancient people discovered smoking. They dried their food by the fire to keep the bugs off of it. And then they noticed that food dried by the fire tasted better, lasted longer, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, let's try this again. To reduce the odds of the tarp catching fire I'm going to spray it down with water. That's one reason people traditionally smoke food wrapped in fresh green leaves — the water in the leaves keeps them from catching fire, to a point.

At the very least, this means I'll have my hose handy in case of disaster. That should keep me safe, just as Surfshark keeps me safe on the internet. Surfshark is the sponsor of this video. Especially when I'm using public wifi, I am sure to open the Surfshark app, quick connect to one of Surfshark's encrypted servers and then use the internet as normal. Now my connection is more private — a virtual private network, if you will — good for data security, but also good for other things. Say I want to watch a video while my meat smokes. Oh no, this content is not available in your country. No problem.

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Thank you, Surfshark. Alrighty, let's check the fire. Oh no, it died way down. But wait, that's exactly what we want it to do. We want smoke, not heat. The way we get that is to maintain a barely smoldering fire. Smoke is a product of incomplete combustion. When wood burns thoroughly, all that's left is carbon dioxide and water.

So a really hot roaring fire actually produces less smoke proportionally because more of the organic chemicals that comprise smoke are getting burned. A low smoldering fire burns less of its own smoke, and that is good. The chemicals in smoke helped to preserve the food and many of them also taste good. Also, smoldering fires are way less hot so the food is way less hot. It's basically room temperature inside here, which is good. There's two basic kinds of smoking: hot smoking and cold smoking. We're doing cold smoking. Cold smoking is what you want for preservation.

Cold smoking is going to get us beef jerky. Hot smoking would get us American-style barbecue — hot smoking in a moist environment. Above 160 Fahrenheit, 70 C, the connective tissue collagen starts to break down and the meat basically brazes in its own internal water. As long as you keep the smoker somewhat sealed, you're going to keep the humidity high. And before the meat dries out, it will be fall-apart tender. American-style barbecue is absolutely delicious, but it is not preserved. It's too wet. Hot smoking is just for flavor and cooking.

Cold smoking is generally defined as anything you do below 85 Fahrenheit, 30 C. Any warmer than that and the fat starts to melt out. Hot smoking in a really dry environment might also dry the outer layer of meat too quickly. This is a phenomenon known as case hardening, and it's very bad. Searing does not seal in the juices, but quick drying does. And when you get case hardening, you basically trap moisture on the inside of the food. The outside looks nice and dry and preserved but the inside is still wet, and that allows for microbial growth. So for preservation purposes, you have to keep the temperature in the smoker below 85.

Fahrenheit, 30 Celsius.

That comes with its own hazards though,

Because unless you're smoking on a cold winter's day or inside a refrigerated chamber, you're going to be holding the meat in the bacterial danger zone — a temperature warm enough to promote microbial growth, but not hot enough to kill the buggies.

Pathogens could run rampant before you've gotten all the water out. This is why the safest bet is to salt cure the meat before cold smoking it. The salt chemically kills microbes and it pulls water out of the meat, which means we can dry it in less time. But what if you couldn't salt the meat? Lots of ancient people would not have had access to added salt, so their smoked meat probably would not have been as safe as mine. However, it still probably would've been safer than their sun-dried meat because of the antimicrobial effects of smoke itself. Cold smoking chiefly preserves food by drying it, but we know it does more than that.

How? Because you can kill some bacteria with this, liquid smoke. Liquid smoke is not an artificial flavoring. It's actual smoke condensed down into a water-based liquid. You burn some wood, collect the smoke and cool it down until the water in the smoke, condenses and traps, all the good smoke chemicals in a solution. The bad smoke chemicals aren't very soluble, so they settle in a distinct layer. This layer includes polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PAHs, which are one of the components of smoke that may cause cancer. You can leave some of the bad stuff behind, you draw off the good stuff, filter it, and that's liquid smoke. This 2014 literature review goes over a bunch of experiments where scientists hit bacteria with liquid smoke and some of the bacteria either died or stopped reproducing.

Look at this: E. coli, zero growth in the population at liquid smoke concentrations above 0.25%. Scientists attribute this effect mostly to two classes of chemicals found in wood smoke: phenols and carbonyls. Phenols disrupt the cell membranes of bacteria, causing them to leak and die, like popping a balloon. Carbonyls bond easily with amino acids in proteins, so when the carbonyls get inside the bacteria, they effectively deactivate enzymes that the germs need to function. Enzymes are proteins. Carbonyls also bond with amino acids in the environment that bacteria need to eat to survive. They basically ruin the bacteria's food supply.

It's pretty cool, but smoke by itself is not a particularly safe preservative. The antimicrobial effects of smoke simply vary so much depending on all kinds of things, like how do you smoke the food? How long do you smoke it? What kind of wood do you burn? What part of the tree are you burning? And crucially, what kind of bacteria are you trying to kill? For example, listeria is pretty resistant to smoke.

Listeria is a tough little buggy. It can survive smoke. It can survive salt and acid, to a point. And unlike other common foodborne pathogens, listeria is perfectly happy at refrigerator temperatures. It'll multiply like crazy in the fridge. Pretty much the only surefire way to kill listeria in food is to cook it.

But cold smoked meat isn't cooked, and it has been implicated in listeria outbreaks. The good news is listeria is not super dangerous for normal healthy adults, unless of course you are pregnant. If you're pregnant, you are far more likely to get sick from listeria because your immune system is going haywire when you're pregnant.

And once listeria are running wild in

Your body, they are particularly good at passing the placental barrier.

Fetal and neonatal infections have a fatality

Rate of 20 to 30%.

That is why if you're pregnant, they tell you to avoid cured meats and raw dairy products and even some raw fresh vegetables, like beans sprouts. Only cooking kills listeria for sure. And this is salted, smoked and dried, not cooked.

I am not pregnant or immunocompromised so I'm going to give this a taste. I cold smoked it for 12 hours, which is probably the bare minimum. It's awfully chewy and extremely salty from the cure, but incredibly delicious, super meaty. The smoked peaches — not as great as I was expecting. Surprisingly little smokey flavor. Aromatics in smoke bond really well to fats and proteins but I'm guessing they bond less well to the fiber that makes up the bulk of a plant's dry weight. Not a winner. But the smoked meat is definitely a winner, and thus preserved it could last for months, as long as I keep it dry.

Plus I could make it both safer and softer by simply cooking it right before I want to eat it. I'll wash any ash off of the surface and slice. Check out that bright pink color on the inside — remember that. Chunks go into some simmering water. Once ancient people invented water-safe cooking vessels, they could have done this. You put in a handful of your dried grains, roots, maybe some greens, and baby, you got a stew going. After a couple hours, the once leathery meat is fall-apart tender and yet still bright pink. It's not gray or brown like cooked beef usually is.

What gives? That is thanks to two chemicals found in smoke: carbon monoxide and, more significantly, nitric oxide. Nitric oxide forms a much stronger bond with the myoglobin protein found in meat. The iron in myoglobin is what makes meat look purple or pink or red depending on its oxidation state. Think of how iron rusts. Nitric oxide forms a strong bond with the myoglobin. Nitrogen is found in protein, trees keep a lot of their protein in their bark, and so burning bark is particularly good for this. Nitric oxide effectively stabilizes the myoglobin — the protein is less likely to change and turn brown in response to cooking or long term air exposure. So the meat is pretty, it's fall-apart tender from the long wet cooking, and that stew is honestly one of the most delicious things I've ever made.

Plus, the excessive salt from the cure is now distributed across all of this broth and other stuff, so it's perfectly seasoned. Sadly, those few bites are all I plan to take from this batch of experimental primitive smoked meat. I don't think this is terribly safe to eat. Why? A few reasons. One, I used all kinds of different wood from my yard in this fire, and I have no idea if all the wood was appropriate to the task. The resins in soft woods can purportedly make you sick. A lot of this wood had fungus on it and lord knows what the smoke from that might do to me.

Also, my fire got too hot in

Here on several occasions.

This probably resulted in some case hardening, which traps water inside the meat, thus allowing microbial growth. It also caused fat to melt out, drop into the fire and burn creating PAHs, the carcinogenic compounds found in smoke. Indeed, according to this paper out of Poland, where they eat a lot of smoked meat, my beef is probably covered in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, simply because I smoked it directly over a fire. Direct smoking results in way more PAHs in food. Modern commercial smoking is usually indirect. You have the fire in one chamber, you then funnel the smoke through a pipe where you cool it down, and when you cool it, some of the PAHs drop out of the smoke and condense on the bottom. You just leave those behind. How did ancient people deal with all of these health hazards of smoked meat? Well, for one thing, I probably think they didn't realize that they existed.

I mean, how would you know that something gave you cancer 20 years after you ate it or whatever? And secondly, I reckon they just had more pressing problems. One reason everybody seems to be dying of cancer these days may be that we are simply living long enough to get cancer and die from it. An ancient person was probably more likely to get got by something else first. If the choice between starvation and carcinogens, I'm taking the carcinogens every time. But, you know, you do you...