Farm and Food-Production Buildings
Meat and fish smoking building or room
well attested
Smokehouse, Chimney smokehouse, Meat smokehouse, Fish smokehouse
What is a rūkykla?
A rūkykla is a place for smoking meat or fish. It may be a separate building, a small tower, a booth, or a special room in the house attic near the chimney.
Smoking preserved food and added flavor, so the rūkykla belongs to the food infrastructure of the traditional homestead.
Historical development
In peasant houses, smokehouses are mentioned more widely from the late 19th century. Earlier smoking places were often connected with the chimney, attic, or other smoky spaces.
In the early 20th century separate smokehouses spread in some parts of Aukštaitija, Central Lithuania, and Dzūkija. They moved smoke and odors away from living rooms.
Form and operation
A separate smokehouse could be square, tower-like, wooden or masonry, without ordinary ceilings, and with a smoke opening or čiukuras. The hearth was below and products were hung above. According to VLE, house smokehouses were usually made of upright boards in the house upper floor beside the chimney; in Eastern Aukštaitija people even smoked in saunas; wooden manor houses had wooden smokehouses and masonry manors had masonry ones; meat or fish was hung on poles placed about 1.5 m high.
The key was controlling smoke temperature, draft, and the distance between products and fire. A small smokehouse is therefore a precise technological building.
Regional connections
Fish smokehouses are especially important to coastal and Curonian Lagoon fishing culture. Meat smokehouses are more broadly connected with the self-sufficient food preparation of a homestead.
The rūkykla connects architecture with culinary heritage: the building's form directly affects the smoking result.
