Real lox is NOT smoked salmon. It is cured salmon, much like gravlax. Gravlax is more of a Scandi dill preparation. Lox is more of a straight up salt and sugar cure. Find a Jewish lox recipe and if it starts listing fancy ingredients skip it and move on.

Because all of the terms have become so bastardized, it is possible that what your friend knows and likes as deli lox, is actually smoked salmon and not real cured lox. And if that is the case, they are best off ordering some online.

Kendra explained it very well but here is a link that outlines it in detail as well. Lox and gravalax (gravalox) are cured.... not cooked. Smoked salmon is cooked over heat.

https://fultonfishmarket.com/blogs/articles/lox-smoked-salmon-gravlax-differences?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=18416372598&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwLCXqsOYkQMVFB-tBh0ZFAQCEAAYASAAEgJkbvD_BwE

I don't know much about the topic beyond knowing I like to eat it in any form when it's available. Typically as a snack or starter course, with small chopped onions and capers. Toast or crackers optional.

I'm hungry thinking of it.

Come on over Elmer. It's a staple in our fridge. We are never lox. In the rare occasion we run out, we get smoked salmon.

That's kind of you. I'm not sure doing that would satisfy an urge as quickly as my going to any of several nearby stores. The product of this genre that Whole Foods usually has is tasty, I don't know which category it belongs to.

You never know, you two might be next-door neighbors!

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)...Thanks for the article. I remember my father always had a whole smoked salmon on the buffet table on Sundays @ The Country Club....but it did NOT have a raw texture. Lox has a raw texture. Hhhhmmmm.......I remember a club member questioning his choice to put it out....now I know why.....about 60 years later.

Edited: smoked & My father was of Jewish heritage. But...as a chef...he seemed to think more people would eat just plain "smoked" salmon. I didn't know it wasn't lox.

I am guessing the whole salmon at a country club was likely a roasted or baked salmon, not lox or smoked. It takes a long time for a skilled person with a special knife to slice off one thin sliver of smoked salmon. It would make for a very, very long line at a buffet. We get ours weekly, sliced fresh.

" I am guessing the whole salmon at a country club was likely a roasted or baked salmon, not lox or smoked. "

It could have been hot smoked salmon, which is cooked in a smoker rather than baked in the oven.

Thanks for the interesting article - the first I've seen which mentions cold smoking cured salmon. That is something I might try (once the foot of snow if off my smoker). I've never smoked anything at that low a temperature, but I might give it a try.

Love, love, love it. Typically on a bagel with cream cheese, capers, and slivered red onion. Lox and bagel - yum!

Smoked salmon - and there's a lot of it about where I live - is rare ever thinly sliced like lox or gravalax. It's processing simply does ot allow for it. Rather, it is presented as chunks or filets (or an entire half salmon if one has the $$) and then broken or crumbled into smaller pieces when served. It may very well have been smoked salmon at the country club buffet.....or just as easily a baked salmon. If really highfalutin, it could possibly be lox that as been presliced and then reassembled as an "intact" half fish, ala Ina Garten

My husband loves it and makes it all the time. He’s always trying to offer me some-nope! It’s probably the only area where he’s more “highfalutin” than I am. LOL

Where I'm from, hot smoked salmon is known as kippered salmon, and as gardengal says it's not sliced, but served in chunks. What many people think of as smoked salmon, often eaten on a bagel with cream cheese, is cold-smoked and thinly sliced. There are many varieties: Scottish, Norwegian, Nova Scotia, etc., each with a slightly different flavor.

Lox is a different kettle of fish, so to speak. Not only is it cured, rather than smoked, but it's also noticeably saltier.

Nice short video about slicing lox paper thin at Zabar's:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BkQUGm4oEkQ

A 14 minute video about Zabar's. This place is a treasure. The intergenerational, intercultural, immigrant reality of NYC distilled into one small store selling coffee, fish, and more brings me hope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3p81V6IuWk

One of my favorite spots on earth!

Growing up, we used the term interchangeably, and years later, I was surprised to find that actual smoked salmon is cooked/flaky. I think it's delicious, but a completely different texture than lox, which I love but haven't had in years. I've never tasted lox that was sweet - only salty.

Suzieque's comment triggered a memory of one of my faves - toasted bagel with cream cheese, lox, tomato and onion - yum indeed!

" Apparently in the past the salmon was dilled and salted, wrapped in a cloth and buried in a bog. It sounds unlikely doesn't it but that is what he says.I doubt they do it like that these days. "

It's not that far off from covering salmon with salt and dill, wrapping it in cling foil, and putting in a cool place (the fridge) under a weight - which is pretty much how I make gravalax.

I never grew up knowing what lox were, just a Catholic kid in the suburbs of Michigan, but I learned to love bagels and lox when I moved and started working in Ft. Lauderdale. Now, DH and I have bagels with cream cheese, thinly sliced onion, capers and lox for breakfast every Saturday morning. Much of it purchased at a “New York” bakery and deli down in town. Love it!

" Lox is yiddish for the German for salmon, lachs. Gravalax is Swedish... "

Not exactly.

The same Germanic root word for salmon is used in Norwegian (laks), Swedish (lax), and Danish (laks). All four sound roughly the same, the spelling differs.(Words obtained from Google translate, I knew the similarities without specificity).

Among my hobbies is reading and visiting places to learn about European history. It's something I've pursued for decades. Somewhere along the line, I learned that although Yiddish and Hebrew are very different, Hebrew letters were used to write in Yiddish. To phonetically make the sounds in its language, to form words that are different from Hebrew equivalents. And much of Yiddish consists of words adopted from German.

So, the writing of "lox" in the Latin alphabet is not Yiddish, per se. It's one of several possible transliterations of the word spelling someone decided to use for the Yiddish equivalent. It's another way to represent the sound using English phonetics and spelling of the German word lachs, the Norwegian laks, etc. .

Laughing here as this convo takes the predictable turn.

"Apparently in the past the salmon was dilled and salted, wrapped in a cloth and buried in a bog. It sounds unlikely doesn't it but that is what he says.I doubt they do it like that these days."

This is not unlike the Icelandic method of curing shark, called Hakarl. After preparing the shark pieces they are buried under the sand on the beach to ferment for a few weeks, which converts toxic chemicals in the shark flesh to make it edible. Well, "edible" for very low values of edible. It is described as "an acquired taste", one which even the late great Anthony Bourdain was not eager to acquire LOL

Major cool Colleen.

Elmer, DH is laughing. He has advanced degrees in this stuff but thank you for explaining the obvious.

edited to add advanced as it being operative.

patriciae

Google is an amazing service!

I'm glad that you and he think misinformation is obvious and funny.

And for all who think results of Google searches are accurate, you get what you deserve.

Well here we go again.

patriciae

So, the writing of "lox" in the Latin alphabet is not Yiddish, per se. It's one of several possible transliterations of the word spelling someone decided to use for the Yiddish equivalent. It's another way to represent the sound using English phonetics and spelling of the German word lachs, the Norwegian laks, etc. .

My grandmother, who was fluent in Yiddish, would be laughing her ass off at this. She had a great sense of humor. She's probably write 'lox' on a steno pad in her secretarial shorthand and then ask you for the transliteration!

Maybe not. If she wrote "lox" in Latin letters, then THAT is the transliteration she did. It's not the only way to express the sound with English phonetics, as I said above. .

Transliteration means how a word from one language, is written in a different language that uses different letters for writing than the language of origin. It's a change of letters to express the sound. It's very different from a translation.

Latin letters ---> Japanese letters

Cyrillic letters---> Latin letters

Hebrew letters=----->Latin letters.

Kendrah did say "in secretarial shorthand ", so

Secretarial shorthand ---> Latin letters...

Yes, I'm familiar with transliteration. (Got reformed Jews in the family.) What @Elmer J Fudd, can't you transliterate from secretarial shorthand into Latin letters?

Then, Kendrah, I don't understand what you said nor what your laugh is. If she wrote the shorthand symbols for the letters L O X, then the spelling in Latin letters with English phonetics is done, that's the transliteration. Locks is the same sound, as would be lochs (Scottish lakes).