I love smoked food of most varieties, whether meat fish or cheese. Chantal kindly bought me a couple of fillets of smoked mackerel which were excellent, although not a particularly remarkable event in itself.
For some reason the taste and smell of these particular fillets instantly took me straight back to the days when I worked in a fish farm near Stratford upon Avon over 30 years ago. I ran the practical operation of the place, and we hot smoked trout, dozens of them at a time, each soaked in brine, and then skewered and placed on racks in the smoking kiln. We sold them them as smoked fillets and also as absolutely gorgeous smoked trout pate. We also cold smoked salmon, buying sides of fresh salmon, laying it on bed of dry salt, before placing the sides into the smoking kiln. Smoking salmon was almost an art – the kiln, with its bed of smouldering wood chips, had to be kept cool, otherwise the expensive side of salmon would be cooked, instead of smoked but raw. Slicing the smoked salmon was also a skill – slices had to be wafer thin, and I was never very good at this.
The tapered ends of the sides of smoked salmon were never saleable – the slices were too small – and so pieces of these were a staff perk. I have been a fan of smoked salmon ever since.
I’m not sure why these particular mackerel fillets were so evocative. Maybe they were smoked with oak , which was the wood that we used at the fish farm. It was a demonstration of just how subtle our senses of smell and taste are, and what an important part that they play in our memory.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
