SALLY BARNES, founder of west Cork's Woodcock Smokery, says it's easy to smoke fish at home. All you need is a biscuit tin
Why smoke fish?In the early 1980s, I was married to a fisherman in Castletownshend, west Cork. With any wild food, Mother Nature tends to throw things at you in abundance all at once. But when that something is mackerel, say, one tends to get tired of it quickly. We had no fridge or freezer. I realised that I could give fish a longer shelf life if I smoked it.
There were no YouTube 'How to. . .' videos in the 1980s. Did you consult books? Was it trial and error? Initially, it was trial and error. For my first attempt, I hung fish up to smoke in an old tea chest. They fell into the ash pan and were ruined. That was a disaster. But I experimented and took notes. Later I wrote to the Torry research centre in Aberdeen and they sent me lots of papers dating back to the 1940s and 1950s.
When did the business begin to take off? Well, at about that time, my then-husband supplied a local man with about three weeks' worth of wild salmon. This man took the fish, smoked it, drank the profits and never paid us.
So you smoked him?No. But a couple of years later, he felt bad about what he'd done. So he gave me his smoking kiln. In those days, winters were lean times for fishermen. All of a sudden, I had people looking to buy my smoked salmon at Christmas. It was fantastic. After that, I studied Food Production Systems and Oceanography through the Open University and I haven't looked back.
In layman's terms, could you describe the process of smoking fish?First of all, you have to use sparkling fresh fish. That's very important. You fillet and salt it. The salt has two purposes. First, it starts the preservation process. Second, it adds flavour. There are two methods of salting. Brining is quick, but it has a shorter shelf life. Dry salting gives you a longer shelf life, but it isn't really suitable for smaller fish.
And you smoke it over what, burning wood? Yes. Beech, oak, elm, ash . . . Any of the hard woods. The timber has to be untreated, free from glues or paint or bits of plastic. The smoke itself has antimicrobial properties too.
Aren't there also carcinogens?Any burning organic material can be carcinogenic. Burnt toast, roasted coffee . . . I'm not being flippant, but too much of anything is probably not healthy for you. A little of anything is usually grand!
Did the ban on drift-net salmon fishing affect your business?Oh, it nearly destroyed us. In 2006, we were given the Supreme Champion Award at the Great Taste Awards in London. It was the pinnacle of my career. Six weeks later, a ban on drift-net salmon fishing was brought in at the behest of an angling lobby. It broke my heart to see my salmon-fishing friends being put out of business like that. I've always believed in supporting the local community, because what goes around comes around. But, eventually, I did some research and found I was able to source salmon elsewhere.
There's currently a craze for smoking salmon at home. Is this something you would recommend a novice to try?Absolutely. In fact, I'll be staging a public demonstration at the Liss Ard Festival in west Cork next weekend. I'm going to show people how easy it is to smoke fish in a biscuit tin. You have your wood shavings at the bottom of the tin. You have a heat source under it. You don't want flames. You just want the wood to smoulder very slowly.
It sounds like a riveting spectacle, watching fish dry .. . You're not watching fish dry. It's hot smoke. It has to be.
Your fish is sitting on a rack inside the tin: it's cooking and smoking at the same time. It's great fun. Haven't you ever tried it?No, but I've eaten smoky bacon crisps on a couple of occasions. Well, it's interesting because, over the years, I have experimented with bacon, duck, chicken, pheasant, rabbit and even cheese. But I decided, I was married to a fisherman for 30 years and you stick with what you know.
Finally, if you show everyone how easy it is to smoke salmon at home, aren't you worried about the competition?Hold on. First of all, you don't start by smoking salmon. You start out experimenting with mackerel or kippers. You build up your confidence before shelling out money on quality fish. As far as competition goes, not in the slightest. You'd have to be mad to get into this business.
The Liss Ard Festival 2012 takes place on August 4th and 5th. For details, see lissardfestival.com
