The message
from martin contains these words:

All the places where I get fish either have both, or only properly
smoked stuff.

I am amazed that neither UK nor the EU hasn't banned the dyed stuff
long ago.

After this we will discuss "smoked" bacon. :-)

Again, I'm lucky with bacon, it seems. Agreed, most of the stuff is
pumped as full as it can be with extra water and (is it?) milk proteins
- if you aren't careful.

Tesco's fish counter at Harford Bridge in Norwich has a
good range of properly smoked stuff, as do most of the fishmongers'
caravan mobile shops.

but not the ones in the York area or if they do it's an innovation.

Never been shopping in Yorkshire.

The situation really isn't as bad as it's painted.

but the fish is?

Not here in East Angular.

If you go to any big supermarket and ask which of the smoked fish on
sale is genuinely smoked and not just dyed, first they say it all is
and then if you argue they get the manager of the department and he
admits it is around zero.

Well, all the supermarkets I use would tell you correctly which was
which - if you couldn't tell from the appearance.

I can :-((

And I. And I avoid the bootpolished stuff like the plague.

Just avoid the ones which look as if they've been decorated with
ox-blood bootpolish.

It must be fairly simple to smoke your own garlic.

An old oil drum, some oak chips a bit of old sacking and bobs your
uncle.

Um, no. You need a much higher chimney or you'll overcook them. Do you
know if they are hot-smoked, or cold-smoked?

I didn't know smoked garlic existed until recently.
They smoke fish in the Zuiderzee museum with the kit I listed. I
smoked some myself with a Webber smoker that I got in a sale.
They sell home smokers in angling shops in NL.

Aye, and the results are (IMO) pretty ghastly. Too quick and too hot.

I think it depends on the type of smoker. The Webber is controllable
as are the ones that originate in the former East Germany, the flat
things that cremate salmon and trout are awful.

The guy with oil drum in Enkhuizen makes the best kippers I have had
anywhere.

I made a sixteen-foot high smokehouse out of corrugated iron on my
smallholding, and before I could put the chimney and butterfly on the
top and do anything sensible with it (it was intended mainly for smoked
cheeses and smoked eel) we had something approaching a hurricane, and it
got truncated.

It amused me that the old guy in the local smokery used to give me oak
chips and encouragement when I smoked my own. It's not really a thing
to do in an urban area so i stopped before somebody called the fire
brigade or the police.

Apart from a handful of houses close by I'm surrounded by countryside.

http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/arjohm.htm

Those views were taken just before I took possession of the place. Isn't
the garden a picture? Or do I mean challenge?

If you haven't been to the Zuiderzee how can you comment if you have
then you don't know perfect kippers when you are offered them.

Does not compute.....

/snip/

I should say that Dutch stuff bought from a farm is very nice.

I've no doubt. i wouldn't be surprised to discover that most of the
Dutch cheese sold over here was of the same quality as most of the
so-called Cheddar available.

I remember immediate post war "mouse trap"Dutch Cheddar almost as bad
as Canadian Cheddar.

Immediately post-war I can't remember any bad cheese. The local grocer
had properly made and matured truckles of cheese about eighteen inches
to two feet in diameter and a bit over a foot thick. The rinds still had
threads from the cheesecloth embedded in the surface, and the truckles
came in tubular boxes made from bent ply.

When I was a slightly larger anklebiter I used to take these home and
use them as linings for a network of tunnels at the bottom of the
garden.

I used to make a goats' cheese when I had a smallholding. A blue,
full-cream pressed cheese matured for nine months. Phwoar!

yum

Too true! They were listed in the Milk Marketing Board's yearbook under
the name 'Starston'.

We can agree on that. I understand that the Dutch men-o'war used cheeses
as cannonballs to very good effect......

nagelkaas? :-)

Yuk! Fingernail cheese?

no just nail cheese.
The "nails" are cloves.

Ah, so Dutch nails double up as fingernails as well as hammerinthingies too?

--
Rusty Hinge http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

Dark thoughts about the Wumpus concerto played with piano,
iron bar and two sledge hammers. (Wumpus, 15/11/03)