# corn cob smoked bacon. Pioneer style.



## nebraskaheat (May 18, 2010)

(title should read corn cob smoked bacon)

My wife bought me a book titled "Nebraska Pioneer cookbook" and in it is a recipe for "smoked bacon" where corn cobs are used to create the smoke. This recipe comes from the "early days" section of the book and is dated as 1863..

Here is the entire "recipe"....

"Take a tin pan or kettle of corn cobs and set them on the fire so as to make them smoke; then turn the bottom side up over the smoking cobs in the barrel, or whatever you wish to salt or pickle your bacon in, so as to thourouly smoke the inside of it. Burn at least two pans of cobs under it, so as to smoke it well. Then pack the ham, shoulders or other meat you wish to make bacon of in the cask, and after preparing your pickle heat it nearly boiling hot, and pour it on the meat and let the meat stay until it is pickled, when it is made into bacon, ready for use and well smoked. The bacon can remain in the pickle until used, and you can watch it in the summer and should it ferment, scald it over."


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## mballi3011 (May 18, 2010)

I know the ole timmey way seems alittle different but this one seem alot different to me. Now you can give it a shot and I would be interested in the out come. Now you might want to give Shooterrick or Rivet a PM for I know theylike doing stuff the old fashion way.


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## nebraskaheat (May 18, 2010)

Yeah, the more I read it the less I think I understand it.. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is the recipe actually just suggesting smoking the container with the corn cob smoke and then using it to store the bacon in? 


The verbage is really throwing me off here. I was assumming it would translate to just using corn cobs instead of wood chunks to smoke the bacon with and then pickeling then bacon. Now I'm not sure.


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## travcoman45 (May 18, 2010)

There countin on the brine ta pull the smoke outa the wood.
Personally, I'd smoke the bacon.

Grandpa used lots a cob fer smokin in the smoke house.

The meat was pickled ta preserve it.  But then again, smokin was used ta help preserve it to.  The pickle would keep it longer.


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## insight (May 19, 2010)

I definitely remember corn cob and maple smoked products in New Hampshire and Vermont.


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## walle (May 19, 2010)

No idea on the pickling part... but we still use cobbs to smoke our sausage.

Personally, if it were me, I would smoke it with cobbs, pickle for a week, slice it, and freeze it up.

Sounds like a "reverse cure" to me.

Let us know how this turns out if you try it.


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## pops6927 (May 19, 2010)

It's the original 'liquid smoke'! Smoked wood with brine, mixed together pickles the meat and gives it a smokey flavor. Take it out, slice it and fry it and you've got a pickled product with smoke flavor added. Leave it in the brine (so as air does not get to it) and it preserves it; should the brine ferment (foam) then scald it over.. (pour boiling water onto the top of it to kill the bacteria). Not quite up to today's health standards, but definitely an old-time process.
My dad did all his smoking with crushed corn cobs, but it got almost impossible to find just the cob without the corn. You could find insilage anywhere, but it burned too hot, the corn with the cob. Plus, was a firehazard to store (intantaneous combustion if it got wet at all).


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