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If you go back many thousands of years ago and postulate how our ancient ancestors may have cooked meat, you can instantly picture a fire-pit and a stick with meat on it. In many ways, conventional grill cooking is still very much like that. The exposure of raw meat to flame sears in the juiciness and cooks the meat, killing any life threatening bacteria that may be on it.

It probably wasn’t much later that humans started experimenting with slow cooking food. When they began to conquer their environment,  removing themselves from the food-chain, they could turn their attention on how change the flavor or texture of the food they had been eating for millenia.

Smoking meat serves several functions. It cooks the meat to where it is safe to eat. It creates a soft, melt in your mouth type texture. And it adds smoky flavor.

The earliest meat smokers would smoke meat until it was totally dried out. This allowed it to be eaten over time and not spoil. The early humans were mostly nomadic. So, being able to take the food with you was an important element.

Modern meat smoking is still used for cooking as well as preserving. Here at Charlie and Jakes, we slow cook meats in our large smoker that seals in the juice and tenderizes the meat. If you have not tried our smokes ribs or chicken, you have been missing out.