The holiday approached slowly, but steadily. Pig squeals cut through the air, and our noses catch the smell of enticing smoke from wood-fired ovens. Slowly everyone was getting ready. Because all kinds of smoking need time, a good mood, and most importantly - inspiration.
It is not for nothing that our saying, which Mykhailo Starytsky took for his comedy, is so optimistic: "Like a sausage and a glass, a quarrel will pass." And when you add ham, horseradish, and horseradish to sausage and a glass of wine, what a quarrel there is!
Fishing meat is a process, of magic and poetry. Since childhood, I have loved this fragrant mystery and still do. In Galicia, the tradition of hunting meat did not die out even during the Soviet era. Especially since sausage has become a shortage.
Those who live in the village or on the outskirts in a private house build themselves a special wood-burning stove with a chimney. Hams, sausages, sponderki, and sausages are hung in the chimney, and if there is a drig, then the whole pig's feet. And all this is not fried or baked, but quietly and dreamily grinds in thick hot smoke, which sneaks up to the chimney through a two-meter channel.
But wood burning is already aerobatics. And there is an easier way.
Those who do not have a wood stove, like me, use a metal barrel for this. In its upper part, ten centimeters below, iron bars should be welded crosswise, on which we hang the meat by metal hooks. You can buy them at bazaars, or you can bend them yourself from coarse wire.
In the lower part, we cut a hole into which we insert a two-meter tin pipe. It can be an old gutter, or you can simply twist the sheet so that it climbs into that hole, and both sides lie on the ground. Then we sprinkle it with earth.
Our wood-burning stove is already ready. At the opposite end of our pipe, we light a fire and make sure that it does not go out, but constantly throw something. The barrel must be covered with something from above so that the meat is bathed in smoke. I use moistened burlap and an old satellite dish for this. The plate is already completely greased, but it catches the signals.
For meat, it is desirable to have logs from vegetable (currently from fruit) trees, it is especially good to give cherry firewood at the end. They will decorate the hams with a beautiful red color.
Nuts can be only at the beginning and not much because nuts make the meat bitter. In no case should you throw firewood from coniferous trees, only from deciduous ones.
And now let's deal with meat. What kind of meat can be fished? Any but pork is best for this. It is ideal to have your own personal butcher. I have one, so I call and say that I need it.
I usually buy several loin steaks, which are back meat with a small layer of lard. I also take a whole neck, which I parcel out at home into more or less identical pieces. When smoked, the neck loses a little fat and is no longer as dense as ham, but its taste is special. And don't forget four or five sponderks and two rolls.
A roll is a fairly wide layer of meat and lard that goes in layers. You can also simply bake it in the oven, adding a filling of onions, mushrooms, greens and twisting and tying it nicely. Baked or smoked rolls is extremely tasty.
Well, if you want to go for a walk, then go for a walk - we make homemade sausage. For her, too, we buy pork neck, lard, and two kilos of veal. And the butchers have cleaned and packed intestines there.
When we move on to the marinating process, the main ingredient of the marinade is salt. One queen didn't like it when her daughter said she loved him like salt. But we know that there is nowhere without it. And to say that - in the Roman Empire, legionaries were paid in handfuls of salt, and it was called salarium. Hence the French word salaire - salary. Later, in the Middle Ages, salt was replaced by money (sol or sou), and soldiers who received wages (solde) were called soldiers (soldiers).
That is why the name of salted meat sausages was given by the Italian adjective salumi (salted), which long ago turned into the noun from which salami comes.
Butchers realized a long time ago that it is unprofitable to sell only fresh produce. It is much more profitable to produce meat products. The Germans of Westphalia were the first to fish ham. Such a ham quickly made Rome happy and conquered and enriched the Germans. Everyone disappeared after her, even the poet Martial. Cato advised rubbing the ham with oil before grilling and after. The secret of the taste of Germanic and Iberian pigs lay in acorns - they grazed freely in oak forests and had well-developed muscles, unlike pigs that were raised in barns without movement.
Before marinating, we cut the meat into parcels so that the pieces are not too long and rough, but about the thickness of the hand and up to 20-25 cm long.
Pour half of the salt and sugar into a bowl, add a spoonful of rosemary, cumin, marjoram, thyme, dry mustard, and crushed garlic, and mix.