> wrote in message
oups.com...
> On Oct 23, 4:55 pm, "Big Jim" > wrote:
>
>>> Years ago, all cooking was done over wood or coal.
>>
>> And if your food tasted smoky you were considered a poor cook.
>
> I have seen a couple of shows on one of the cooking channels that have
> pizza joints that use coal fired ovens with open flames to cook their
> pizzas. The guy doing the segment was astonished there was no smoke
> taste.
>
> Locally, there are still a few places that have the large wood fired
> oven to make pizzas and cook other smaller things in them. I have had
> pizza from the local pizzaria that cooks theirs in a mesquite fired
> overn, and no mesquite taste at all. THAT was a disappointment.
>
> Robert
>

When you burn wood down to coals all the volatiles are burned off, so there
is nothing left to impart smoke flavor.
True whole hog or shoulders cooked direct over coals has no smokering or
smoky taste. You can taste the wood but it isn't smoky.
--
James A. "Big Jim" Whitten

www.lazyq.com