Smoking
Flavouring, cooking or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from smouldering wood.
Also: smoked food
Smoke from slowly burning wood coats food with compounds that add flavour and colour and slow spoilage. In cold smoking the food stays cool and is not cooked, as with smoked salmon. In hot smoking the food cooks as it smokes, as with smoked mackerel or American barbecue. The kind of wood matters: oak, hickory, beech and fruit woods each give a different taste. Fish, meat, cheese, tea and chillies are all smoked somewhere in the world.