Incense kate

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The Tews-Kate in Malente - the oldest smokehouse in Ostholstein
Old Rauchkate in the village museum Ratekau (in Ratekau in the Ostholstein district)

A smokehouse (initially also in Low German Rookhus ) is a type of building that was widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in northern Germany . These are houses or buildings that were used to smoke food.

The smokehouse mostly served both the usual farming and the smoking of ham and sausage . The residents usually made their hallway , in which the open hearth was maintained, available for the other farmers in the area to preserve sausage and meat products. Also fishing in the inland sea area had such huts where they burned incense their fish.

The construction of the smokehouse is mostly based on the typical regional construction methods, but it is considerably smaller than the farmhouses in the courtyards. Especially in the times when the Lower Saxon smoke house with open hearths was built less and less and existing houses of this type were rebuilt so that no open fireplaces distributed the smoke throughout the farmhouse, the smaller smokehouse gained in importance. The mostly poor residents, who could not afford the "modern" houses, had the opportunity to earn additional income. Life in a smoke house or later in the smoke house was anything but healthy.

Later some smoking kats were used exclusively for smoking. Some smokehouse persisted for a long time. For example the Eickedorfer Räucherkate in Teufelsmoor and the Rauchkate in Harmsdorf in Holstein.

Rauchkaten

The Rookhus Göhren - information board
The Rookhus in Göhren - in the back

Rauchkaten (Low German Rookhus) are farmhouses and fishermen's houses without chimneys on Rügen and in other coastal areas of the Baltic Sea, where the smoke could only escape from the open hearth through openings in the gable roof - called "Uhlenlöcher" and through open doors and windows. The roof structure was without a ceiling, so the beams were blackened by the smoke. The cane roofs hung low on low half-timbered walls with clay infills. They had square “Afsiden” (offsides ) covered on both sides . The front doors (also called “ Klöntüren ”) were divided horizontally - “dat Unnerheck” below and “dat Babenheck” above. The central work space behind it was called “de Dääl”. The above-mentioned (but probably misinterpreted) designation and the assigned purpose of the building as a smokehouse is probably due to the fact that the meat and sausage products in the house were hung in the rising smoke to protect against vermin and to preserve it. For smoking, in the sense of the word, that was far from being enough. The building type was still in use until the middle of the 19th century. Rauchkaten, albeit slightly modified, were still inhabited until the 1970s. B. in Alt Reddevitz. A “Rookhus” has been set up as a museum in Göhren.

literature

  • Hermann Kaiser: Hearth fire and stove in the smoke house - living then , 3rd edition. Schuster, Leer 1988, ISBN 3-7963-0201-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. Lehmann / Meyer, “Rügen AZ”, Wähmann-Verlag, Schwerin, 1976, p. 65