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The Raw Truth About Lox (2003)
- incanus77 4y agoSounds like it takes a true dedication to make and sell lox. A loxsmith, really.
- samatman 4y agoNothing to it, you put your lox stock in the smoking barrel.
- sbaiddn 4y agoGreat movie
- bovermyer 4y agoIf 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.
- cableshaft 4y agoI'm a loxsmith, and I'm a loxsmith. https://youtu.be/XFhpctuUwb4 https://youtu.be/XFhpctuUwb4
- JoeyBananas 4y agoThey're not talking about liquid oxygen
- MikeDelta 4y agoIn 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 4y agoWouldn't butter and liquid oxygen make a fairly nasty but effective rocket fuel? LOX is fun like that.
- userbinator 4y agoIndeed, from the title I thought it might be related to the infamous training safety film "The Man From Lox" (don't watch if you have a weak stomach.)
- Taniwha 4y agoyeah, came here for the LOX spilled on tarmac stories ....
- an1sotropy 4y agoAs the saying that is widespread in the business has it, “You can’t get lox without a note from your mother.” Fascinating!
- nsedlet 4y agoBy 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.
- jsollins 4y agoLast month, Acme made a video about the difference between Nova Vs Lox! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnzED08aOrs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnzED08aOrs
- jfzoid 4y agoAccording to this article, the word "lox" hasn't changed in 8000 years https://nautil.us/the-english-word-that-hasnt-changed-in-sound-or-meaning-in-8000-years-237395/ https://nautil.us/the-english-word-that-hasnt-changed-in-sou...
- Wistar 4y agoReal 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.
- mst 4y agoI tend to not salt things full stop. Many years ago, I made pasta (I forget what with) for a girlfriend and I for dinner, and she was deeply unimpressed I hadn't salted it. The next time I made it, I made sure to have a giant jar of salt on the worktop ... but didn't actually add any. She considered the end result much improved.
- Wistar 4y agoHah! Your girlfriend and my wife have similar sodium habits (and perceptions). I've never been a fan of salty food but it seems the culinary consensus is to salt the hell out of everything although they call it "seasoning." I am convinced that salmon flavor suffers profoundly from the contemporary salting craze.
- AlbertCory 4y agoGreat 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 4y agoRequired, forbidden, or somewhere in between? https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/815625/jewish/Is-lox-and-cream-cheese-kosher.htm https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/815625/jewish... https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/rabbis-claim-lox-no-longer-kosher/1880021/ 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 4y agoI 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.
- sologoub 4y agoStrange 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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravlax
- smcl 4y agoWas the salmon jerky at least any good?
- p1necone 4y agoI bet you could make a great fish pie with salmon jerky
- mhb 4y agoAgreed. 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.
- mst 4y agoThis comment and the parent between them strongly suggest to me I'm going to end up with salmon jerky at least once but I should seriously consider trying it anyway.
- 4y ago
- photochemsyn 4y agoHistorically, 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/ https://philosokitchen.com/salted-cod-prepare/
- bobthepanda 4y agoToday, 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.
- djur 4y agoInteresting. I've recently (last 5-10 years) noticed New Yorkers complaining about the quantity of cream cheese on bagels and suggesting that there's more than there used to be. (Leave it to New Yorkers to gripe about getting too much food for their dollar!)
- bobthepanda 4y agoI think that complaint is slightly different, that the fish:cheese ratio is becoming unbalanced towards cheaper cream cheese and away from expensive fish. Which is I suppose a form of shrinkflation.
- unwind 4y agoSuper 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.
- bovermyer 4y agoInteresting 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 4y agoI 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-difference https://www.bonappetit.com/story/hot-smoked-cold-smoked-fish...
- unwind 4y agoHm yeah but I probably dropped a hyphen, I meant preparation. Sorry for upping the confusion. :)
- dsr_ 4y agoLox 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.
- cbfrench 4y agoSubstituting smoked salmon for lox seems fishy. A real caper, if you will.
- hcayless 4y agoNo need to be salty about it.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago“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-english-word-that-hasnt-changed-in-sound-or https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/185617923376/the-englis...
- paganel 4y agoThe Romanian lostriță (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", "-triță", which is indeed Slavic-sounding). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huchen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huchen
- trelane 4y agoAccording 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 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lox Corroborated by the OED: https://www.etymonline.com/word/lox 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 4y agoOld English has leax "salmon" which is the same word. Which makes sense it's from the Germanic side of the fence.
- MikeYasnev007 4y ago
- trelane 4y agoWarning: article is about fish and has nothing to do with oxygen, liquid or otherwise.
- yieldcrv 4y ago> 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.
- Eisenstein 4y agoThe article says that 'lox' comes from the German 'lauchs' which means 'salmon'. So, 'lox' just means salmon. I don't believe that 'salmon' in German has to specifically mean 'salted cured but not smoked salmon', but apparently the author of the article thinks it does.
- charlie0 4y agoWhat I'm curious about is the marketing. Why call it lox instead of smoked salmon?
- djur 4y agoI think the article is somewhat overstating its case. As they mention, "lox" just means "salmon". As far as I know, over time some producers started smoking the salmon in addition to salt curing it (as is done with gravlax, etc.). The resulting product has a milder flavor and started to outsell the traditional lox. I don't think those producers would have necessarily agreed that once they started smoking the salmon it no longer was "lox". As for the current business reasons to retain the name, it helps distinguish it from hot-smoked salmon (which is very different and used for different dishes), and of course it carries an "authentic", "old New York" cachet.
- raydiatian 4y agoLox or smoke salmon—-aren’t both (A) delicious and (B) essentially deli meats that are super bad for you to consume on a regular basis
- drewcoo 4y agoA deli and an appetizing store are different. You're talking appetizing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appetizing_store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appetizing_store
- raydiatian 4y agoYeah that’s basically a deli I don’t know what to tell you
- raydiatian 4y agoAlso leave it to snobby ass New Yorkers to think it’s their responsibility to evangelize their naming conventions for food establishments onto everybody else. Like they’re the goddamn Inuit naming snow. Get real!
- pie_flavor 4y agoThe opening paragraph sets you up for some revelation in the shape of crab usually being imitation crab. Instead it's just that Americans say lox when they mean smoked salmon and don't like the thing that 'lox' means in other countries. I don't think this is particularly revelatory - there's a dozen of these, like peperoncinis.
- rubatuga 4y agoNova is Nova Scotian lox, and is both lightly brined and cold smoked. This should be made a bit more clear in the article.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]