The famous Arbroath Smokie is regarded as a world wide delicacy, and sales of this type of cooked fish are sold from the base of Arbroath to ‘Red Lichties’, their friends and relatives all over the world. To many people the town and this delicacy are one and the same thing. It has also been known for a native of Arbroath to be referred to as a Smokie

There are some things about a Smokie that bear thinking about, and when I was a young man, I can well remember standing at a ‘Barrel’ for the first time watching the smoke curl from beneath the hessian covers as the Smokie went through the delicious cooking and preserving process.

The first thing I learned from the Smokie is that it is a dead haddock! The man who was showing me, told me that it ‘must be a haddock’ and he pointed to the black spot, which is located on each side behind the gills, which he described as ‘Peters thumb mark’. Apparently when Jesus’ disciple Peter picked up a fish to get the tribute money from it, he left his thumb print on the fish, and it was a haddock! So the story went anyway.

Sadly, - for the haddock – it is dead, and my bible tells me that before I become a Christian, I am ‘dead in sins’
It is obvious that the haddock is dead, it lives in seawater, and can’t exist for long in fresh air. It is out of its element!
Until we get right with God, spiritually, we are ‘out of our element’ too, but sometimes it is hard for us to realise it. We like to think that we are ‘OK’ and that God should do things our way.

The dead haddock is then cleaned and that is just what God wants to do with us. He wants to take away all the things that ruin our lives, and make us useless to him.
There are those who think that God should balance up the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ in our lives, but God doesn’t want to leave any sins to spoil the new life he gives to those who trust him. It is like being born again.

It is important that the haddock are then salted before they go into the barrel, otherwise the cooking would mean that the fish would fall apart in the heat.
It really is wonderful the things that God does for those who trust him, He gives strength for each day, just so that Christians can show the difference to those around them.

Once the salt has been absorbed, the excess is removed and the haddocks are tied together by their tails into pairs. They are then and hung over triangular sticks called "Haik’s". There you go, Smokies are never alone, they always have another Smokie with them. That is not to say that once a person becomes a Christian that they immediately become twins. No, but they can remember that Jesus said “I am with you always”. That’s encouraging. In fact that’s terrific!

Smokies are a healthy option and can help in keeping the fat at bay, go on try them!
Trusting the Lord Jesus for Salvation gets us fit for heaven.

Thank you for reading to the end

Click here to buy smokies direct from Arbroath via The Shoppie!