Tripuri Smoked Pork

Home-smoked pork — pork belly or shoulder rubbed with salt and sometimes a light coating of turmeric, hung on bamboo racks above the traditional kitchen hearth (which burns continuously for cooking) and slow-smoked over days or weeks in the natural wood smoke from cooking fires until the exterior develops a dark, smoky crust and the interior firms and dries slightly while remaining moist. The smoked pork is not made to be eaten as is; it is torn or sliced into pieces and added to chakhwi, gudok, or wahan mosdeng to provide a deeper, smokier flavour than fresh pork. The smoking both preserves the pork for months without refrigeration and develops flavour compounds that no fresh pork preparation can replicate. Every traditional Tripuri kitchen with a wood-fire hearth had smoked pork hanging above at all times; it was the pantry protein.