Where There's Smoke, There's...Whiskey, Fish, and Barbecue!

**Cynthia Graber** (0:02)
We are at the Boston Smoked Fish Headquarters, and a huge rack of maybe a dozen trays of gorgeous golden brown smoked salmon just rolled by.

**Matt Bauman** (0:11)
I came out of the smoker just about an hour ago. So we're about 2,500 square feet of fish processing space here. And we're smoking five to six times a week, so you're always going to smell this wonderful aromas of the cherry and pecan woods that we use.
The pecan wood really gives kind of a nice unctuous bacony flavor to the fish. And then at the end, we finished it off with cherry, which has a really nice sweet floral bouquet.

**Nicola Twilley** (0:41)
Oh, God, I love smoked fish. Please tell me this is an episode all about smoked fish, where all we do is eat smoked fish.

**Cynthia Graber** (0:49)
I wish I did at least get to smell the smoking fish. And let me tell you that cherry and pecan wood smoke with the unctuousness of the fish. I was salivating throughout the whole visit. I wish I'd spent the whole time eating.

**Nicola Twilley** (1:01)
Smoke makes everything taste great. Smoked fish, smoky mezcal, my personal favorite flavor of crisp, smoky bacon. But why is smoke so delicious?

**Cynthia Graber** (1:11)
This is actually a question that one of our listeners and supporters asked us too.

**Keith Sutherland** (1:15)
Hi, Nicky and Cynthia. This is Keith Sutherland from Dublin.
I was enjoying a glass of my favorite whiskey, Lagavulin, which is famously peaty. And it got me thinking about how many of the things we eat and drink have a smoky flavor.
I managed to think up quite a long list of smoked products. Whiskey, beer, fancy cocktails, meat, especially bacon, cheese, paprika, lap sang sushong tea. And then all sorts of questions sprang to mind. Why do we smoke some things and not others? What happens to the food when we do? Why do I love smoky whiskey but hate burnt toast? I'm hoping Gastropod can find out some answers.

**Cynthia Graber** (1:50)
And this is Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food with a lens of science and history. And we are here to answer your questions. I'm Cynthia Graber.

**Nicola Twilley** (1:57)
And I'm Nicola Twilley. And this episode is dedicated to all things smoky, including something we get a ton of emails from you all about, barbecue. Listener Nicole is just the most recent barbecue truth seeker.

**Nicole** (2:11)
Hi, Cynthia. Hi, Nikki. I was hoping you could help me. If somebody asked, I would say barbecue is my favorite type of food. On the way to our local barbecue joint, my husband, who immigrated here from New Zealand, asked what really is barbecue.
It turns out my American barbecue knowledge is pretty poor. I couldn't offer any helpful information at all.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:31)
So we've heard of Texas, Carolina, and Kansas City barbecue.
Are they really different? Could you please offer us a history and understanding of American barbecue?

**Nicole** (2:41)
Thank you so much.

**Cynthia Graber** (2:42)
Those are our marching orders, and that's just what we're off to do in this Encore episode, investigate.

**Nicola Twilley** (2:48)
Gastropod is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

**SPEAKER_7** (2:54)
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**Nicola Twilley** (3:56)
The other night, I had friends round and because it gets chilly at night in LA, we lit a fire. Then because we're not actually very good at outdoor things, it smoked for a while and we all cried.

**Cynthia Graber** (4:09)
Many of us have had that experience. I've cried plenty at campfires, but it did make us wonder, what is smoke?

**Harold McGee** (4:15)
Smoke is the, man, sorry, I wasn't quite ready for the cosmic nature of that question.

**Cynthia Graber** (4:26)
Harold McGee has been on Gastropod many times before. He's an expert on the science of cooking, and he just wrote a fascinating new book called Nosedive, A Field Guide to the World's Smells. He did, of course, have a slightly more detailed explanation of what smoke is.