Original Smokehouse

We’re quite proud to have the original smokehouse still intact at Frog Hollow Farm. Pennsylvania has the Alleghenies and the Poconos, both extensions of the Appalachian Mountains. In this region, where there is a traditionally high Germanic population, people tended to have a preference for pork (and many still do).

Because pork is a fatty meat, it doesn’t keep as long as some leaner meats do. For that reason, smokehouses were frequently integral buildings on working farms here. Other meats may benefit from the flavor of smoking, and smoking is a typical method of food preservation, but pork almost required it before refrigeration was possible.

Our smokehouse remains in its original location on the property, next to a large, square concrete pad with slightly inclined surfaces and a short curb around the edges. This is the slaughter pad, where the animals were butchered.

Meat from whatever parts of the slaughtered pig were hung over a fire of hickory chips, corncobs, maple or perhaps deadfall wood from one of the many fruit trees in our orchard. It just depended on the particular flavor the farmer sought, or—more often—on what was available at the time.

Whatever wild game the farmer might have been able to shoot, such as rabbit and venison, was also smoked in addition to the domestically raised pork and beef. Because a functional smokehouse could take some work and expense to build, not everyone had one. It’s likely that the original farmer performed smoking of meat for his neighbors and nearby stores and taverns. This would have been a way to earn a bit of rare cash, or was compensated in barter goods such as sugar, shoes, and imported goods not available locally.