I love any food, especially meat, smoked. And like many, there’s a good reason as to why.
We all grew up being a bit pyromanic… right? Didn’t we? Well, I know I did. ๐ I remember memories of making my own fire crackers… putting two matches head to head and wrapping the heads in aluminum foil and heating up the foil, you had instant crackers. ๐
However, what was even more memorable was my visits to my grandparents’ place in Namwon. It is (at least it was when I was a kid) a small town about an hour away from Chonju, Soojin’s hometown, and 5 hours south of Seoul. Back when I used to visit, they still cooked food using wood. Rice was cooked in this big black pot that sat on top of fire. My (beloved) grandma used to let us feed wood to that thirsty fire, and my brother and I didn’t care how hot it was, we just kept feeding the fire to it.
Soon enough, I developed a strong liking to the smell of burning wood. When crop was good, there’d be days when my uncle would bring in peas and after they are dried in sunlight, we’d set the whole thing on fire and eat the cooked peas inside the pods. Boy were they good!
So every time I eat or smell either smoked food or burning wood, I always reminisce about the old days. Things were much simpler then… Cooking in fire was even cooler at night. Shucks… I wish I could relive that moment.
not to be too technical, but what you described in your experience at your grandparents is not smoking the food, but wood-fire cooking. Smoking and grilling/cooking in a wood fire gives a slightly different flavor in my opinion.
Gotta hand it to DP to always nit pick! ๐
sorry….just a character flaw of mine, I guess…but I do agree that grilling over wood fire makes things taste better than conventional heating methods. Ohhh another great way of cooking is deep frying! You should deep fry more things. ๐
deep frying > conventional heating
grilling > conventional heating
mmm i love the smell of burning wood too. those peas sound SO good. actually i’ve developed this really weird thing lately for the smell of cooking rice. i have no idea why! sometimes it smells so good to me i just eat it totally plain. weiiird