Mission:Lox - That Ain't Exactly Smoked, Kid

So... lox isn't what I thought it was. The words of my first post - about me having a major lack of knowledge - have come even truer than I previously thought. I knew, literally, one thing about lox. It is in fact salmon. It is not, however, smoked. Well, it kind of is. Why is this so complicated?!

So here it is. Lox is salmon - generally fillet - that is cured in a liquid brine. The brine seems to consist of water, salt, and sometimes sugar and "spices." Then it is cold-smoked. Cold-smoking basically means that the meat is exposed to smoke for a short period of time, to give it some flava, but is not exposed to the heat. This is why lox remains so silky and melty and sashimi-like. This reminds me, I need to explore my desire to eat raw beef. Steak tartar might be next?!?!

Alas, questions remain. As my ADD self-help book Finding Your Focus suggests, I'll make a list:


1. What are these mysterious spices? I understand, you know, when in the ingredients section on a food product it vaguely states that "spices" were included in the making of said product, that that is probably a way of protecting their original, centuries-old recipes. But venerable sources of information like Wikipedia should be a bit more transparent, I think. Also, an aside: Why does the Cuban restaurant I work at list "Cuban spices" as an ingredient? I believe the menu is aimed at what the Dominican woman inside of me would call "babosos."


2. How about the duration of the brine? Does the brine last for hours? days? weeks? You really never know with these Nordic and/or Eastern European Jewish folks.


3. And finally, who makes it best? It seems that the Scots, the Swedes and their fellow Nords, and the Ashkenazi Jujubes from Eastern Europe are the old masters. I'll see what I can dig up.



There's a morsel for us to chew on, ey? I figure I'll go out tomorrow and try to get the best stuff in this city of lauded lox. From what I've seen on chowhound, it seems that either Barney Greengrass (fun name!) or Murray's Sturgeon Shop are the places to go, both reasonably easy to get to from my place up in Higgidy Harlem. I'll letcha know how it goes.



nono.