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Hallo! Neu in diesem Forum-Frage zur Herkunft des indirekten Grillens

Paul_BBQ

Militanter Veganer
Ich habe ein bisschen texanische deutsche Abstammung. Uns wurde immer gesagt, dass Central Texas BBQ deutsch / tschechischen Ursprungs ist. Gibt es ein historisches Gericht, das der Vorfahr von geräuchertem Bruststück und Rippchen mit Soked Beef sein könnte? Rauchen Menschen in Deutschland ungehärtetes Fleisch? Entstammen unsere Würste einer bestimmten deutschen Wurstsorte? Vielen Dank.
 
Hi Paul,

mir käme das klassische Spanferkel, gerne auch in Osteuropa so gemacht, stundenlang an (nicht zwangsweise über) der Glut gedreht, in den Sinn.

Die Süd(Ost)Europäer machen das mit Lamm, die etwas weiter weg gen Osten auch mit Hammel. Die Aufzählung ist nicht abschließend und umfassend.

Ob das aber direkt einen speziellen deutsch-tschechischen Touch hat, weiß ich nicht (zumal ja unsere Ländergrenzen recht frisch sind)....

Rind wurde "hier" m. E. eher gekocht/geschmort oder normal gebraten.

Würste oder auch Schinken zu räuchern ist eine uralte Vorgehensweise, hier gibt es unzählige lokale und traditionelle Spezialitäten....

Vg und viel Erfolg bei der genauen Recherche!
 
Ich denke, dass es auch eher einfach mit der traditionellen Hitzequelle zu tun hat... die letzten paar Tausend Jahre haben Menschen Essen über/neben Feuer gemacht - und selbiges wurde meistens mit Holz betrieben. Dadurch blieben gewisse Raucharomen nie aus.
Von daher würde ich da jetzt nicht wirklich eine Region daran festmachen. Natürlich sind viele Europäer in die Staaten ausgewandert und haben dort Essgewohnheiten und Nutztiere mitgebracht - das hat alles Einflüsse auf den großen "melting pot" USA gehabt.

Geräuchert wird auch in Europa schon lange - alleine, um Fleisch haltbar zu machen. Aber viele Sachen, die ich auf meinen Smoker als BBQ packe, gibt es auch als Schmorgerichte (Rippchen, Rinderbrust als Braten). Ich denke, die sind einfach auch mal mangels passendem Topf auf einen Grillrost (oder einen heißen Stein) neben einem Feuer gelandet und wurden dort low&slow behandelt. Und dann hat man entdeckt, dass das auch super schmeckt :)
 
Ich denke, dass es auch eher einfach mit der traditionellen Hitzequelle zu tun hat... die letzten paar Tausend Jahre haben Menschen Essen über/neben Feuer gemacht - und selbiges wurde meistens mit Holz betrieben. Dadurch blieben gewisse Raucharomen nie aus.
Von daher würde ich da jetzt nicht wirklich eine Region daran festmachen. Natürlich sind viele Europäer in die Staaten ausgewandert und haben dort Essgewohnheiten und Nutztiere mitgebracht - das hat alles Einflüsse auf den großen "melting pot" USA gehabt.

Geräuchert wird auch in Europa schon lange - alleine, um Fleisch haltbar zu machen. Aber viele Sachen, die ich auf meinen Smoker als BBQ packe, gibt es auch als Schmorgerichte (Rippchen, Rinderbrust als Braten). Ich denke, die sind einfach auch mal mangels passendem Topf auf einen Grillrost (oder einen heißen Stein) neben einem Feuer gelandet und wurden dort low&slow behandelt. Und dann hat man entdeckt, dass das auch super schmeckt :)

Die Geschichte nach dem Buch Legends of Texas BBQ ist, dass die Deutschen Wurst und Schweinelende rauchten. Sie rauchten dann Wurst und übrig gebliebenes Rind- / Schweinefleisch in Texas auf ihren Fleischmärkten. Ich vermute, die Schweinelende, auf die sie sich bezogen, war ungehärtet, aber nicht sicher.

Die Stadt Elgin in ist berühmt für geräucherte Wurst in Texas. Gibt es etwas Ähnliches wie die Elgin Hot Guts Wurst in Deutschland - alles Rindfleischwurst mit Salz, schwarzem Pfeffer, Cayennepfeffer und stark geräuchert?

Aus meinen Nachforschungen über Bruststück geht hervor, dass es tatsächlich jüdische Delikatessen waren, die zuerst Bruststück auf der Speisekarte geraucht hatten. Was meiner Meinung nach Sinn macht.

Ich denke auch, dass Deutschland neben Schweinen auch Ochsen geröstet hat. Ich stelle mir vor, dass dies eine alte Technik und ein altes Essen ist.
 
Hey Paul,

I think it's easier if I simply write in english :)
Got the impression you put your questions to google translate - it's a quite nice tool, but some finer points might get lost in translation ;-)

As far as I know, the jewish tradition for the beef chest muscle is more aimed for pastrami... same cut, but it's cured and then smoked. Brisket, as a roast, I don't know as a jewish dish (but I'm not an expert in that area, to be honest).

"Mutzbraten" is a piece cut out of the pork butt, not from the pork loin. But people here in this area also cure and cold smoke pork loin - sometimes with some herbs as a crust, sometimes without, depends on the individual taste.

As for the sausages... well, I think there are at least a thousand different sausages to be found in the "old world", so the inspiration for the Elgin Hot Guts might be taken from one of them - I personally don't know any heavy smoked beef sausage, especially not with cayenne pepper (I think, this ingredient only joined the sausages in the new world or if it's originated in the southern countries of europe).

And yes, here in Germany we also like to roast whole animals from time to time for special occasions... not only pigs, also whole oxen or the occasional lamb... it's a delicious treat :)
 
Hallo, bei uns im Schwarzwald ist das Räuchern Tradition. Aus einer Chronik heraus die den Ursprung des Amerikanischen BBQ untersuchte wurde gesagt das die Deutschen beim Auswandern viel Wissen über Fleisch, Zerteilung und Haltbarkeit hatten. Das kam Ihnen in der neuen Welt zu Gute. Daher waren speziell die Deutschen auch oft die ersten Metzger und das Heissgeräucherte das erste BBQ.
Gruß Sven
 
Hey Paul,

I think it's easier if I simply write in english :)
Got the impression you put your questions to google translate - it's a quite nice tool, but some finer points might get lost in translation ;-)

As far as I know, the jewish tradition for the beef chest muscle is more aimed for pastrami... same cut, but it's cured and then smoked. Brisket, as a roast, I don't know as a jewish dish (but I'm not an expert in that area, to be honest).

"Mutzbraten" is a piece cut out of the pork butt, not from the pork loin. But people here in this area also cure and cold smoke pork loin - sometimes with some herbs as a crust, sometimes without, depends on the individual taste.

As for the sausages... well, I think there are at least a thousand different sausages to be found in the "old world", so the inspiration for the Elgin Hot Guts might be taken from one of them - I personally don't know any heavy smoked beef sausage, especially not with cayenne pepper (I think, this ingredient only joined the sausages in the new world or if it's originated in the southern countries of europe).

And yes, here in Germany we also like to roast whole animals from time to time for special occasions... not only pigs, also whole oxen or the occasional lamb... it's a delicious treat :)

1. Thank you. I was using google translate. I did take German in college but haven't used it since college so I am very rusty.

2. With regards to brisket I was going off this article: Texas smoked brisket

3. Thanks for the clarification on mutzbraten. Do Germans traditionally smoke any uncured meats? Mutzbraten might explain why Lexington style BBQ prefers pork butts/shoulder. Maybe - I don't really know.

Barbecue was sold on the streets in pop-up stands. It was much easier to cart around meat from pork shoulder as opposed to a whole hog you’d smoke at a pig pickin’.

Five of the men who are credited with creating this new Piedmont-style were all of German decent, according to the geneology research conducted by Reed’s wife, Dale. Though their Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors had settled in the Piedmont in the 1700s, these men still loved a delicacy specific to one region of Bavaria: pork shoulder with a sweet and sour vinegar sauce. Therefore, Piedmont-style barbecue is a take on the German dish, Reed says."
ourstate.com/nc-barbecue-styles/

4. With regards to the sausages could it be there is a similar German sausage that used paprika and cayenne got substituted in the new world?

5. Is this a new tradition or a very ancient one? And I guess these animals are roasted low and slow? Do you guys use spits or smokers or something else?

Thanks for having me on this forum. I absolutely love BBQ and meat in general.
 
Hallo, bei uns im Schwarzwald ist das Räuchern Tradition. Aus einer Chronik heraus die den Ursprung des Amerikanischen BBQ untersuchte wurde gesagt das die Deutschen beim Auswandern viel Wissen über Fleisch, Zerteilung und Haltbarkeit hatten. Das kam Ihnen in der neuen Welt zu Gute. Daher waren speziell die Deutschen auch oft die ersten Metzger und das Heissgeräucherte das erste BBQ.
Gruß Sven
Ja, ich habe von dem berühmten Schwarzwälder Schinken gehört. Raucht ihr ungehärtetes Fleisch?
 
Raucht ihr ungehärtetes Fleisch?
Depends on the thing we want to make... there are three temperature levels for smoking: cold, warm and hot.

Hot smoked stuff usually is eaten immediately, doesn't keep very well. So the smoke is just an ingredient for taste, not for preservation. Meat smoked thusly is usually not cured, just regular spiced and maybe some salt in the rub.
Warm smoked stuff preserves a bit better than the hot smoked goods - maybe 1-2 weeks in the fridge. Usually it is cured and after its curing smoked at medium temperatures - Pastrami might be an example for that.
And then there is cold smoke. It's made for long term preservation, usually with a quite intense curing and several smoking sessions at low temperatures. There are many styles of ham or sausage or also pork loin that are treated this way. It was the common way to preserve meat goods in times when refridgerators or freezers were not common at all.

So... yes, we also smoke uncured meat, but mostly for immediate consumption :)
 
Sorry, I kinda missed your reply previously, let's correct that error ;)

1. Thank you. I was using google translate. I did take German in college but haven't used it since college so I am very rusty.

Don't worry, I wasn't complaining. It was just noticeable that you used a translator due to some strange expressions... e.g. to cure meat means "pökeln" in German, not "härten" - that would be more appropriate for steel 😉

2. With regards to brisket I was going off this article: Texas smoked brisket

Since I don't have any personal experience in jewish cuisine and tradition, I can neither confirm nor deny this article. But it seems plausible.

3. Thanks for the clarification on mutzbraten. Do Germans traditionally smoke any uncured meats? Mutzbraten might explain why Lexington style BBQ prefers pork butts/shoulder. Maybe - I don't really know.

https://www.ourstate.com/nc-barbecue-styles/

I'd say that people smoked, dried, salted any kind of meat for preserving for thousands of years. Smoking meat in itself probably just started out as a side effect of heating meat near a fire, it kept a bit longer than the raw product. Also drying meat helped to make it last longer, so they hung strips of meat near a low temperature fire to let it dry - smoke was another side effect again. But these techniques people already found out in waaaaay prehistoric times, so I wouldn't dare to give this invention to any specific people.

As for the linked article I'm not really sure whether they stated real things in there. As I lived most of my life in Bavaria and I think I got the cuisine part there quite well covered, I came never across a dish with pork shoulder and a sweet/sour vinegar based sauce.
The only dish I could think of is a "Sauerbraten", which the region around the Rhine is most famous for. There's vinegar in the sauce (and the meat is also cured in vinegar). But that's again beef, not pork.
A pork shoulder dish Bavaria is famous for, is "Schäufele". It's a cut of the pork shoulder with part of the blade on it with a regular gravy (some use beer for the gravy, some don't), potato dumplings and some kind of cabbage based vegetable (Sauerkraut, red cabbage, savoy cabbage) or a simple side salad.
Bavaria is also famous for beer, so you would find more dishes based on that than on wine (and its side product vinegar). And yes, dear friends from lower franconia, I know, your region is also famous for wine ;-)

But of course, cuisine could have changed since the discovery and conquest of the american continent and that there was indeed a famous bavarian dish based on pork shoulder and a sweet/sour vinegar sauce. But if there was, it is forgotten - at least in our parts :)

4. With regards to the sausages could it be there is a similar German sausage that used paprika and cayenne got substituted in the new world?

To be honest, I can't say for sure that there is a traditional sausage here in Germany with paprika or chili flavouring. Historically speaking, paprika, chili and these fruits were indiginous to America, so before Colombus they were not known in the old world. In the first phase of conquest, Spain and Portugal did the heavy lifting and brought back alot of these new spices to the european continent. That's why you can find these also in the traditional cuisine and products of these countries. Chorizo is a spanish sausage made from pork, garlic, salt and a dastardly amount of pimenton (smoked paprika). Germany as a country didn't exist until 1871 (it was only a mishmash of separate states before), so the brunt of colonization on the american continent was already done by then, so we "only" got the base stuff like potatoes and not the fancy tasty stuff like chilis and paprika. Also, german climate might not be optimal for growing these plants unmodified (nowadays it's easily possible, but I don't dare to think how much selective breeding was necessary to achieve this). Funnily Hungary is quite known for paprika based stuff and as far as I know they also sat the American Colony game out.

5. Is this a new tradition or a very ancient one? And I guess these animals are roasted low and slow? Do you guys use spits or smokers or something else?

Regarding spitting whole animals... well... I think it depends on the occasion. Usually it's only done for big feasts with enough people to enjoy the whole animal. It would be a little overkill to roast a whole oxen just to have a slice of spit-roast brisket to your breakfast toast (but I'm sure, there were decadent enough people in the past to do exactly that - but that was never the norm!).
Spitting whole animals... that's also something very, very, very, very basic and archaic. Imagine hunting with your ice age buddies for big game and then you feel a little pang in your stomach and now walk-through available (wheel not invented yet, so no driving). So one solution would be: Hava a snack in small game, fetch some rabbits, fish up some fishes, snare a squirrel, peel, spit, roast near a small fire.

Sometimes these archaic urges are nice to be satisfied, so on special occasion there is a whole animal on the spit and takes its turns. I'm sure you also had rotisserie chicken - it's the same principle, just different animals :D
 
Depends on the thing we want to make... there are three temperature levels for smoking: cold, warm and hot.

Hot smoked stuff usually is eaten immediately, doesn't keep very well. So the smoke is just an ingredient for taste, not for preservation. Meat smoked thusly is usually not cured, just regular spiced and maybe some salt in the rub.
Warm smoked stuff preserves a bit better than the hot smoked goods - maybe 1-2 weeks in the fridge. Usually it is cured and after its curing smoked at medium temperatures - Pastrami might be an example for that.
And then there is cold smoke. It's made for long term preservation, usually with a quite intense curing and several smoking sessions at low temperatures. There are many styles of ham or sausage or also pork loin that are treated this way. It was the common way to preserve meat goods in times when refridgerators or freezers were not common at all.

So... yes, we also smoke uncured meat, but mostly for immediate consumption :)
Thanks for the info. Is this traditional in Germany , something that used to be more popular in the past, or an American influence? What meats and cuts that are uncured do you guys smoke?
 
Sorry, I kinda missed your reply previously, let's correct that error ;)
No worries. I think it was waiting for moderator approval so you didn't miss anything.
Don't worry, I wasn't complaining. It was just noticeable that you used a translator due to some strange expressions... e.g. to cure meat means "pökeln" in German, not "härten" - that would be more appropriate for steel 😉
Mea culpa
Since I don't have any personal experience in jewish cuisine and tradition, I can neither confirm nor deny this article. But it seems plausible.
Either way smoked brisket is amazing. I am happy it happened.
I'd say that people smoked, dried, salted any kind of meat for preserving for thousands of years. Smoking meat in itself probably just started out as a side effect of heating meat near a fire, it kept a bit longer than the raw product. Also drying meat helped to make it last longer, so they hung strips of meat near a low temperature fire to let it dry - smoke was another side effect again. But these techniques people already found out in waaaaay prehistoric times, so I wouldn't dare to give this invention to any specific people.
I agree. But whenever I ask about uncured smoked meats like pork shoulder, beef brisket, pork ribs, beef ribs people always seem to say that this is a Native-American or African American invention that European-Americans and Europeans adopted. It doesn't make sense to me especially since cattle (and aurochs before them) have been in Europe for thousands of years. It is pretty easy to figure out that smoking meat makes it taste really really good. But this is why I was curious if any part of Europe but specifically Germany had a tradition of smoking uncured meats.
As for the linked article I'm not really sure whether they stated real things in there. As I lived most of my life in Bavaria and I think I got the cuisine part there quite well covered, I came never across a dish with pork shoulder and a sweet/sour vinegar based sauce.
The only dish I could think of is a "Sauerbraten", which the region around the Rhine is most famous for. There's vinegar in the sauce (and the meat is also cured in vinegar). But that's again beef, not pork.
A pork shoulder dish Bavaria is famous for, is "Schäufele". It's a cut of the pork shoulder with part of the blade on it with a regular gravy (some use beer for the gravy, some don't), potato dumplings and some kind of cabbage based vegetable (Sauerkraut, red cabbage, savoy cabbage) or a simple side salad.
Bavaria is also famous for beer, so you would find more dishes based on that than on wine (and its side product vinegar). And yes, dear friends from lower franconia, I know, your region is also famous for wine ;-)

But of course, cuisine could have changed since the discovery and conquest of the american continent and that there was indeed a famous bavarian dish based on pork shoulder and a sweet/sour vinegar sauce. But if there was, it is forgotten - at least in our parts :)
True. I read another article that named the dish. It is apparently still eaten by the Amish/Pennsylvania Dutch today.
The German influence in North Carolina has been more subtle than that of the German butchers in Texas who made sausage and beef brisket major parts of the Lone Star story, or that of South Carolina’s upcountry Germans who introduced and sell to this day their state’s peculiar mustard-based sauce. (Lake E. High Jr. of the South Carolina Barbeque Association points out the continuing importance of families with names like Bessinger, Shealy, Hite, Sweatman, Sikes, Price, Lever, Meyer, Kiser, Zeigler, and Dooley—originally Dula, as in Tom, of Wilkes County and the Kingston Trio song.) But in North Carolina, the German factor is obvious once you start looking for it.

In all of German-speaking Europe, pork was the meat of the peasant classes, and in the New World their descendants remained attached to it. When Germans and their hog-droving Scotch-Irish contemporaries arrived in the 1700s, they fit right in to porcivorous North Carolina. To this day, German cookery has a particular fondness for smoked pork, sometimes marinated in vinegar flavored with various spices; the Pennsylvania Dutch cousins of North Carolina Germans, for example, cook a dish called saurer Seibrode, basically a pork version of Sauerbraten. True, the smoked pork of German cuisine is salted or brined, smoked in a smokehouse, and soaked in water before being cooked, but the point is that vinegar-and-smoke–flavored pork was not an alien taste for German newcomers in North Carolina. All that was lacking were the cayenne peppers.

Here’s the clincher. William Ways Weaver, who writes about the history of German and Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, points out that the shoulder of the hog was a particularly esteemed cut, indeed a “ritual consumption item” at hog-killing time, and Schäufele (smoked shoulder, served sliced) has something of a cult following in Germany today.
https://southwritlarge.com/articles/holy-smoke-the-big-book-of-north-carolina-barbecue/
To be honest, I can't say for sure that there is a traditional sausage here in Germany with paprika or chili flavouring. Historically speaking, paprika, chili and these fruits were indiginous to America, so before Colombus they were not known in the old world. In the first phase of conquest, Spain and Portugal did the heavy lifting and brought back alot of these new spices to the european continent. That's why you can find these also in the traditional cuisine and products of these countries. Chorizo is a spanish sausage made from pork, garlic, salt and a dastardly amount of pimenton (smoked paprika). Germany as a country didn't exist until 1871 (it was only a mishmash of separate states before), so the brunt of colonization on the american continent was already done by then, so we "only" got the base stuff like potatoes and not the fancy tasty stuff like chilis and paprika. Also, german climate might not be optimal for growing these plants unmodified (nowadays it's easily possible, but I don't dare to think how much selective breeding was necessary to achieve this). Funnily Hungary is quite known for paprika based stuff and as far as I know they also sat the American Colony game out.
I see. Maybe the rest of the recipe is authentic but the pepper was added later. I am not that familiar with the German varieties of smoked sausage. Which sausages are smoked?
Regarding spitting whole animals... well... I think it depends on the occasion. Usually it's only done for big feasts with enough people to enjoy the whole animal. It would be a little overkill to roast a whole oxen just to have a slice of spit-roast brisket to your breakfast toast (but I'm sure, there were decadent enough people in the past to do exactly that - but that was never the norm!).
Spitting whole animals... that's also something very, very, very, very basic and archaic. Imagine hunting with your ice age buddies for big game and then you feel a little pang in your stomach and now walk-through available (wheel not invented yet, so no driving). So one solution would be: Hava a snack in small game, fetch some rabbits, fish up some fishes, snare a squirrel, peel, spit, roast near a small fire.

Sometimes these archaic urges are nice to be satisfied, so on special occasion there is a whole animal on the spit and takes its turns. I'm sure you also had rotisserie chicken - it's the same principle, just different animals :D
I agree. I have a question about spit roasting whole animals specifically oxen. Does it come out good or does it come out dry?

Meat on ox plate.jpg
From this pic this doesn't look that appetizing.

Does any part of spit roasted whole oxen develop a nice crust like brisket?
Smoked-Beef-Brisket-1693.jpg


And sorry to bother you with one more question: Have people traditionally (or in modern times) spit roasted individual cuts of meat like brisket, shoulder, cheeks?
 
As far as traditional german smokers and smokehouses... there is no big tradition, to be honest. The kind of BBQ is mostly american based (north american bbq, south american churrasco, asado or rodizio) - and there's also the question whether the focus in on "smoked" or "heated over open fire" (or grilling).
We are quite big on grilling - in the southwestern corner, the Saarland, people love their swing-grills (or "Schwenker") - a grate hanging on chains from a gallows construction over an open fire. Since about the 50s people here mostly used their grills for sausages, steaks from multiple cuts of pork, chicken breasts, sometimes even veggies... over the years it got a bit more fancy, there's also other meat (turkey, lamb) or different spices people got to know on their summer vacation on the mediterranean. But it was never the really big low and slow action with smoke as a flavour ingredient.
You can see this even nowadays when people look for a new grill and one of the key questions is "how fast can it be hot?". It's a means to scorch meat, not to spend time with actually processing it and more a status symbol than an utensil. People here in the forum might be a bit different, but the majority in Germany is sadly just interested in impressing others, having alot of food on the grill and not having a clue whether they got quality there or just quantity. Or even how to heat it up in a way that is not as dry as the gobi desert.

Regarding the roasting of whole animals: Yes, it can be juicy and succulent - if the chef knows his or her craft and used good quality. Sadly, again, those big, big animals like oxen are mostly roasted at festivals like Oktoberfest; there it's more important to get some meat to the people who are already drunk as a skunk and have a big profit margin than really delivering quality, so sadly you're either friggin lucky and getting a good part, or you're stuck with the liquid diet instead.
Also: whole animals have different cuts of meat on them - some more lean, some more fat. It is really, really difficult to get it all juicy - I wouldn't dare to try to roast an whole oxen. Lamb, maybe - at least I know people who do this for a living from time to time and they really know their craft.

As for the history of smoking meat - as I mentioned earlier, the focus in the past was most definitely more on preserving food than the actual taste. If it tasted fine, that's great, but stuff that wasn't that interesting on the palate was just as good as long as it didn't kill the consumer. It's only in our time of excess of food that we can really put a focus on taste first. In former times, people used everything from animals to make something to eat. Try nowadays to feed children some tripe, rocky mountain oysters or lamb eyes instead of McDonald's.
We have the luxury to choose, a luxury only very, very, very rich people had in the past. Usually people ate what was available and made the best out of it. It had to keep, so they used preservation methods like drying, salting (curing) and/or smoking. Some things tasted better because of that, some... not so much... I prefer fresh cod to stockfish (salted, dried cod) every day of the week, for example.
 
As far as traditional german smokers and smokehouses... there is no big tradition, to be honest. The kind of BBQ is mostly american based (north american bbq, south american churrasco, asado or rodizio) - and there's also the question whether the focus in on "smoked" or "heated over open fire" (or grilling).
Interesting. Do you know if any part of Europe has a tradition like that? I was reading about Czech uzene and it kind of sounded similar to that.
We are quite big on grilling - in the southwestern corner, the Saarland, people love their swing-grills (or "Schwenker") - a grate hanging on chains from a gallows construction over an open fire. Since about the 50s people here mostly used their grills for sausages, steaks from multiple cuts of pork, chicken breasts, sometimes even veggies... over the years it got a bit more fancy, there's also other meat (turkey, lamb) or different spices people got to know on their summer vacation on the mediterranean. But it was never the really big low and slow action with smoke as a flavour ingredient.
You can see this even nowadays when people look for a new grill and one of the key questions is "how fast can it be hot?". It's a means to scorch meat, not to spend time with actually processing it and more a status symbol than an utensil. People here in the forum might be a bit different, but the majority in Germany is sadly just interested in impressing others, having alot of food on the grill and not having a clue whether they got quality there or just quantity. Or even how to heat it up in a way that is not as dry as the gobi desert.
That is disappointing. I had hoped smoking was big. I wonder if Texas Germans who invented Central Texas BBQ got the idea from somebody else or maybe they just smoked the left over meat in the meat markets and Texas BBQ was born.
Regarding the roasting of whole animals: Yes, it can be juicy and succulent - if the chef knows his or her craft and used good quality. Sadly, again, those big, big animals like oxen are mostly roasted at festivals like Oktoberfest; there it's more important to get some meat to the people who are already drunk as a skunk and have a big profit margin than really delivering quality, so sadly you're either friggin lucky and getting a good part, or you're stuck with the liquid diet instead.
Also: whole animals have different cuts of meat on them - some more lean, some more fat. It is really, really difficult to get it all juicy - I wouldn't dare to try to roast an whole oxen. Lamb, maybe - at least I know people who do this for a living from time to time and they really know their craft.
That makes sense. Which is why I was wondering if anybody had the bright idea to roast individual cuts rather than the whole animal. I guess mutzbraten comes close. Not sure I would say it is smoked. I am not that familiar with the dish though.
As for the history of smoking meat - as I mentioned earlier, the focus in the past was most definitely more on preserving food than the actual taste. If it tasted fine, that's great, but stuff that wasn't that interesting on the palate was just as good as long as it didn't kill the consumer. It's only in our time of excess of food that we can really put a focus on taste first. In former times, people used everything from animals to make something to eat. Try nowadays to feed children some tripe, rocky mountain oysters or lamb eyes instead of McDonald's.
We have the luxury to choose, a luxury only very, very, very rich people had in the past. Usually people ate what was available and made the best out of it. It had to keep, so they used preservation methods like drying, salting (curing) and/or smoking. Some things tasted better because of that, some... not so much... I prefer fresh cod to stockfish (salted, dried cod) every day of the week, for example.
Smoked sausage I imagine was common. I really do wish there was a developed tradition of smoking some uncured meats in some part of Europe. According to wikipedia even Schwenker might be from South America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwenker

This description of schwenker does sound like low and slow cooking.
In the nearby Hunsrück district of Rhineland-Palatinate, the local speciality Spießbraten is often served along with or instead of Schwenker. Raw meat, most usually pork neck or loin but sometimes also beef is marinated in a mixture of onions, salt and pepper for several hours. The meat is then roasted over an open beech log fire and served with potatoes and grated radish or seasoned cabbage. This is carried out in a similar manner to Schwenker, on a large grill resembling a wheel hanging down above the fire. The wheel is rotated slowly over the fire to ensure even cooking.
 
Which is why I was wondering if anybody had the bright idea to roast individual cuts rather than the whole animal. I guess mutzbraten comes close. Not sure I would say it is smoked. I am not that familiar with the dish though.
Well, aside from poultry, usually a whole animal is just "too much" for a regular dish. Or would you roast a whole pig at about 150kg for a normal sunday bbq with your family and close friends? Unless you got a REAL big and hungry family, it might be overkill.
So, usually people try to cook, roast, stew, braise, ... just parts which will get eaten. Some choice pieces. The other pieces of the animal got processed to preserve the meat for later use (and in more modern times: deep frozen), meat is minced, salted, spiced and smoked as sausages, ham is salted, smoked or just dried, etc. etc.

If you want to familiarize yourself with dishes like Mutzbraten, here are some threads in this forum regarding the dish:
https://www.grillsportverein.de/for...nde-manchmal-soll-es-mutzbraten-geben.278746/
https://www.grillsportverein.de/forum/threads/mutzbraten-und-haehnchen-vom-spiess-ergebnisse.229044/
https://www.grillsportverein.de/for...m-auspit-und-ciabatta-aus-dem-ramster.209275/
https://www.grillsportverein.de/forum/threads/mutzbraten-ein-gedicht-aus-schweinefleisch.190541/
https://www.grillsportverein.de/forum/threads/spiess-wochenende-mutzbraten.171032/

Do you know if any part of Europe has a tradition like that? I was reading about Czech uzene and it kind of sounded similar to that.
To be honest, I do not know whether there's a special "smokehouse" tradition anywhere in Europe. There are cuisines which are strong grill oriented - especially the balkan states are quite strong in that regard, but I do not know any european cuisine being really famous for smoked goods. There are single dishes with smoked ingredients, but it's not like people specialized in it.

Also I personally have some trouble defining "tradition". As I said before, most cuisines were created by the available goods in that area at the time of the year, people harvested, raised & slaughtered and processed it as fresh as possible for it to last as long as possible. Many families had maybe one pig for the whole year and they had to make every pound count. Also is the treatment of the meat different at different climates - in a more cold environment, you can do stuff to meat which would have had it rotten already in a hot and humid climate.
So, is it a tradition to treat goods according to your area and climate for the last, let's say 1000 years? Or is it a tradition what happened in the last 50 years? Or is this still a trend?

BBQ is something the USA are famous for - but it has its origin in the necessity to cook cheap cuts of cheaply available meat with as cheap means as possible and still get it delicious. So meat cuts with lots of collagen and other tough parts in the cut heated over low heat for a long time and flavoured by the smoke instead of expensive spices. Maybe some root veggies thrown in as well for some extra taste.
Only later the not so poor people found out that this poor man's food does indeed taste wonderful.
Just like it happened with lobster (which was big as prison food during the 18th century and surely the cause for a riot or two "oh no, not again lobster") or caviar (food for russian peasants until the higher ups discovered it).

Since it's the nature of men that there are much, much more people being poor than rich, is the food of necessity a tradition? Or just... well.... food?

As far as I know, real interest in BBQ also only started after the second world war, when economy was on the rise again and people could travel and choose again. There were some BBQ restaurants even before, but these were single spots, not like the BBQ belt that exits nowadays in the southern states of the US.

So, what is tradition? How long must a habit be a habit to become tradition? I couldn't define it, to be honest.
I prefer to think in "region x is famous for dish y" - whether it's smoked or not, is secondary to me. As I am a priviliged snob, I have the freedom to choose, so for me the taste of the dish is the most important part.
 
This description of schwenker does sound like low and slow cooking.
Not really, there are two different "systems" or better say two different arts of BBQ.

The "Schwenker" have a rotating and swinging grill gate. Powered by a Human nudge.
It's mostly over a wood-fire and direkt heat.

The "Spießbraten" is more likely to be low and slow.
It's more a "Pike- roast meat" that means, your Meat is impaled and rotates (mostly electrical) over or near the fire on low to mid heat.
It is similar to a "Spanferkel"
For example
The "Spanferkel"
Screenshot_20210603_012617.jpg

And a kind of "Spießbraten"
Screenshot_20210603_012603.jpg
 
Well, aside from poultry, usually a whole animal is just "too much" for a regular dish. Or would you roast a whole pig at about 150kg for a normal sunday bbq with your family and close friends? Unless you got a REAL big and hungry family, it might be overkill.
So, usually people try to cook, roast, stew, braise, ... just parts which will get eaten. Some choice pieces. The other pieces of the animal got processed to preserve the meat for later use (and in more modern times: deep frozen), meat is minced, salted, spiced and smoked as sausages, ham is salted, smoked or just dried, etc. etc.
Makes sense. That's why I was curious if people figured out they could smoke smaller cuts instead of the whole animal.
Thanks. I will check those out.
To be honest, I do not know whether there's a special "smokehouse" tradition anywhere in Europe. There are cuisines which are strong grill oriented - especially the balkan states are quite strong in that regard, but I do not know any european cuisine being really famous for smoked goods. There are single dishes with smoked ingredients, but it's not like people specialized in it.
Yes that makes sense.
Also I personally have some trouble defining "tradition". As I said before, most cuisines were created by the available goods in that area at the time of the year, people harvested, raised & slaughtered and processed it as fresh as possible for it to last as long as possible. Many families had maybe one pig for the whole year and they had to make every pound count. Also is the treatment of the meat different at different climates - in a more cold environment, you can do stuff to meat which would have had it rotten already in a hot and humid climate.
So, is it a tradition to treat goods according to your area and climate for the last, let's say 1000 years? Or is it a tradition what happened in the last 50 years? Or is this still a trend?
I understand.
BBQ is something the USA are famous for - but it has its origin in the necessity to cook cheap cuts of cheaply available meat with as cheap means as possible and still get it delicious. So meat cuts with lots of collagen and other tough parts in the cut heated over low heat for a long time and flavoured by the smoke instead of expensive spices. Maybe some root veggies thrown in as well for some extra taste.
Only later the not so poor people found out that this poor man's food does indeed taste wonderful.
Just like it happened with lobster (which was big as prison food during the 18th century and surely the cause for a riot or two "oh no, not again lobster") or caviar (food for russian peasants until the higher ups discovered it).
You seem very familiar with the history of American BBQ. Do you think European Americans especially German Americans were able to figure out that concept by themselves?
Since it's the nature of men that there are much, much more people being poor than rich, is the food of necessity a tradition? Or just... well.... food?

As far as I know, real interest in BBQ also only started after the second world war, when economy was on the rise again and people could travel and choose again. There were some BBQ restaurants even before, but these were single spots, not like the BBQ belt that exits nowadays in the southern states of the US.

So, what is tradition? How long must a habit be a habit to become tradition? I couldn't define it, to be honest.
I prefer to think in "region x is famous for dish y" - whether it's smoked or not, is secondary to me. As I am a priviliged snob, I have the freedom to choose, so for me the taste of the dish is the most important part.
I agree. What was served at those BBQ restaurants?
 
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