[HN Gopher] The Raw Truth About Lox
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The Raw Truth About Lox
Author : nkurz
Score : 74 points
Date : 2022-10-01 12:34 UTC (10 hours ago)
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| sologoub wrote:
| Strange that the article didn't mention gravlax[1]. It's a salt
| and sugar cured salmon that melts in your mouth if done right
| and, at least to my taste, doesn't overwhelmed you with salt. Of
| course last time I tried to make this I got salmon jerky, but
| that's user error.
|
| [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravlax
| smcl wrote:
| Was the salmon jerky at least any good?
| mhb wrote:
| Agreed. And, no insult intended, but it is not hard to do it
| right. It has one of the food world's highest result/effort
| ratios.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Smoked salmon is gravlax (brine of sugar and salt) + cold
| smoke.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| I made it once. You have to put a weight on it while it's
| curing, like a gallon bottle of water. Did you do that?
| MikeYasnev007 wrote:
| incanus77 wrote:
| Sounds like it takes a true dedication to make and sell lox. A
| loxsmith, really.
| samatman wrote:
| Nothing to it, you put your lox stock in the smoking barrel.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| Great movie
| bovermyer wrote:
| If this was Reddit I'd give you an angry upvote.
|
| Since this is a more discerning audience purportedly of
| culture, instead take this "thoughtful" commentary:
|
| I think the article does lend itself to giving a less common
| insight into what goes into making and selling lox.
| charlie0 wrote:
| What I'm curious about is the marketing. Why call it lox instead
| of smoked salmon?
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| "Lox" is also one of the oldest words in English. It is a proto-
| Indo-European word that has retained the same meaning and sound
| for thousands of years.
|
| https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/185617923376/the-englis...
| trelane wrote:
| According to Merriam-Webster, it arrived in English in th
| 1930s, from Yiddish: Merriam-Webster's definition of "lox":
| http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lox Corroborated by
| the OED: https://www.etymonline.com/word/lox (exact year
| conflicts; 39 and 34, resp.)
|
| Given the excerpt of the original article (404) from your link,
| I'd guess the word traces back that far linguistically, and is
| more or less unmodified in sound, even though it only arrived
| in English recently.
| paleotrope wrote:
| Old English has leax "salmon" which is the same word. Which
| makes sense it's from the Germanic side of the fence.
| paganel wrote:
| The Romanian _lostrita_ (Romanian for the Danube salmon [1])
| also most probably comes from proto-Indo-European, even though
| Romanian etymology dictionaries "chickened" out on this and
| used old-Slavic as a source for it (probably because of the
| word's "ending", "-trita", which is indeed Slavic-sounding).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huchen
| Wistar wrote:
| Real lox is so salty that I know I won't ever eat it ... again. I
| have come to really dislike salty salmon and, these days, barely
| use any salt when I season it.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Historically, fish preserved with salt were prepared for eating
| by soaking in several changes of fresh water over a 24-hour
| period. That's how salt cod is prepared, I wonder if this salt
| lox was supposed to be treated the same way?
|
| https://philosokitchen.com/salted-cod-prepare/
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Today, the way it is commonly eaten is with cream cheese on a
| bagel, so the plain carbs and dairy should cut the overall
| saltiness a lot.
|
| That being said, I have fond memories of lox in my childhood,
| and I remember the bagels used to have much more generous
| helpings of cream cheese (nearly a half inch of it.) Maybe
| Americans being more diet conscious has indirectly driven the
| cream cheese off and lowered the salt tolerance in the dish.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Great article.
|
| I had a houseguest and I toasted bagels for breakfast. I got out
| the cream cheese and smoked salmon, and he said, about the
| salmon, "I guess that's required for your religion?"
|
| I said, "But I'm not Jewish!"
|
| I didn't know that was required.
| Eleison23 wrote:
| Required, forbidden, or somewhere in between?
|
| https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/815625/jewish...
| https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/rabbis-claim-lox-no-lo...
|
| My favorite Kosher story is the controversy in New York over
| the copepods in the water supply. Some families were filtering
| all their water for fear of consuming the hapless little
| crustaceans.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I guess I inadvertently used "required" in both senses here:
| (1) required for Jews to consume smoked salmon, and (2)
| required to be Jewish to consume it.
|
| I really meant (2) in the last paragraph.
| JoeyBananas wrote:
| They're not talking about liquid oxygen
| MikeDelta wrote:
| In the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice the nefarious
| SPECTRE smuggled* liquid oxygen together with butter, making
| everyone think the shipment of "butter and lox" was the fish
| and not the rocket fuel component.
|
| * Perhaps transported is a better word, as they were quite
| transparent in that they were transporting 'lox'.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Wouldn't butter and liquid oxygen make a fairly nasty but
| effective rocket fuel? LOX is fun like that.
| trelane wrote:
| Warning: article is about _fish_ and has _nothing_ to do with
| oxygen, liquid or otherwise.
| jstx1 wrote:
| Or with the toy programming language from Crafting Interpreters
| - https://craftinginterpreters.com/introduction.html
| an1sotropy wrote:
| _As the saying that is widespread in the business has it, "You
| can't get lox without a note from your mother."_
|
| Fascinating!
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > the product may even be labeled as lox and they very well think
| they are enjoying lox, but what they are getting, instead, is
| smoked salmon.
|
| I thought these were synonyms, with lox being a NYC and New
| England dialect choice.
| nsedlet wrote:
| By the way, the best New York secret is "Fish Friday", when the
| Acme factory in Williamsburg sells its stuff directly to the
| public for pickup, including various experimental things they've
| come up with. It's easily the freshest, best-tasting smoked
| salmon I've ever had.
| jfzoid wrote:
| According to this article, the word "lox" hasn't changed in 8000
| years https://nautil.us/the-english-word-that-hasnt-changed-in-
| sou...
| unwind wrote:
| Super interesting, but another case where I feel the value of the
| article would have like doubled if they had included images.
|
| "Here is what lox looks like, and here is smoked salmon" would
| have helped.
|
| Not being Jewish, or even American, it's not obvious if it's cold
| or hot smoked salmon that's the new favorite for instance. I
| would guess cold, but an image would probably have made it
| obvious directly.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Lox is very pink, wet, and otherwise looks just like sashimi
| swimming in a tub of brine. It's very, very salty. Keep it
| refrigerated. It does not smell very fishy because it's still
| in the brine.
|
| Cold-smoked salmon is relatively easy to find in the US; CostCo
| makes a decent version under the Kirkland label. It's moist
| rather than wet and is usually sold as a thinly sliced slab on
| a waxed tray in a sealed bag -- it must be kept refrigerated
| and does not tolerate exposure to air for more than a few
| hours.
|
| Hot-smoked salmon is even easier to find, but is nothing like
| the other two products. It's dry, flaky, and rather like an
| overcooked salmon fillet. If it is smoked all the way to jerky,
| it doesn't need to be refrigerated.
|
| All of these will attract local wildlife.
| bovermyer wrote:
| Interesting perspective!
|
| I'm an American, and I've always thought of lox - and smoked
| salmon, which until now I thought was the same thing - as cold.
|
| Are there places where smoked salmon is served warm?
| theIV wrote:
| I don't believe they were referring to how it's served but
| how it's prepared.
|
| https://www.bonappetit.com/story/hot-smoked-cold-smoked-
| fish...
| unwind wrote:
| Hm yeah but I probably dropped a hyphen, I meant preparation.
| Sorry for upping the confusion. :)
| cbfrench wrote:
| Substituting smoked salmon for lox seems fishy. A real caper, if
| you will.
| hcayless wrote:
| No need to be salty about it.
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(page generated 2022-10-01 23:01 UTC)