 Lox commonly used as a synonym for “smoked salmon,” usually served as an appetizer in up-scale
restaurants. The term “lox” comes from Lachs, the German word for
salmon. But Lox is actually not smoked. All Lox
is actually prepared by curing in a salt/sugar/spice
mixture. Smoked salmon or Nova style salmon, in addition to being salt/sugar-cured, is briefly cold-smoked. Such
cold-smoking is done at room temperature for a few hours and does absolutely no
cooking or preserving of the salmon. It’s sole purpose is to impart a
slight smoky taste to the fish.
Our ancestors needed
ways to preserve their food. Meat, especially fish, was highly perishable
and would last only a few days if not preserved. Populations fortunate
enough to live by the sea, however, discovered that they could make salt by the
evaporation of sea water. Such salt became not only a means of enhancing
the taste of food but of preserving it as well. Meat and fish were packed
in salt and dried or, in some instances, were stored in a salt solution, or
brine; food so kept would remain edible and safe for weeks. Such salting
was man’s first method for the preservation of food, the earliest recording of
which is found in the writings of Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder, a Roman
statesman from about 200 BC. While bacteria and the concept of germs were not
known until the Nineteenth Century, ancient cultures unwittingly were killing
harmful bacteria when they salt-cured their meat and fish and thus had developed
one of the earliest disease prevention strategies.
Over the centuries,
salt-cured fish became more then just a dietary staple, as it assumed certain
mystical qualities. For instance, during the Middle Ages, a time when
spiritual and supernatural beliefs abounded, cured fish was believed by the Jews
to be an aphrodisiac and was an essential part of the post-Sabbath
celebration.
Anti-Semitism
flourished in Europe in the centuries following the Middle Ages, and Jews fell
on hard times. Herring was the most abundant fish in the North Atlantic
and was thus quite cheap. Salt-cured herring thus became one of the
staples of the Jewish diet but also became a symbol of bad times and a lesser
class. During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, however, when many
Jews began to enjoy prosperity, they turned away from salted herring and its sad
reminders and looked for foods that reflected their improved lives. Salmon
was a fish prized for the tables of royalty, and Jews soon applied the curing
recipes they had used with herring to this more luxurious fish. Salmon
yielded a cured fish like nothing people had ever experienced. Its
smooth, silky texture, its tender, delicate flesh and its subtle salty taste
immediately made cured salmon a delicacy that is treasured to this
day.
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