A method that exposes food to smoke to add flavour and, in hot smoking, to cook it, often combined with curing to help preserve foods such as fish and meat.
Exposing food such as fish or meat to smoke from smouldering wood to add flavour, colour and some preservative effect, either by hot smoking, which cooks it, or cold smoking, which does not.
Hot smoking cooks the food at a temperature high enough to make it safe, while cold smoking only flavours it at a lower temperature and relies on other controls to keep it safe.
No. Especially with cold smoking, smoking is usually combined with curing, salting, chilling or a proper cook step, because smoke alone is not a reliable safety control.
Smoked, salted and vacuum-packed fish can allow Clostridium botulinum to grow in low-oxygen conditions if salt, temperature and time are not properly controlled.
Hot-smoked and cold-smoked products are generally treated as perishable and kept chilled with a use-by date, and vacuum-packed smoked fish needs strict refrigeration and date control.