Dudkhāneh (Gilan fish-smokehouse)

What a dudkhāneh is

Dudkhāneh (دودخانه, literally a smokehouse) is a local name used for a smoke room or smokehouse. In Gilan, fish smoking belongs to the region’s wider preservation culture, but it should not be confused with the household rooms used to dry rice. Encyclopaedia Iranica notes both rice smoking and fish preservation in Gilan; the room arrangements differ by purpose and account.

The clearest building-specific account here is one family workshop visited in Mobandan, near Langarud. A 2022 field report records a dark, earthen-plastered smoke room with a roof covered in gāli, a plant thatch, and old wooden doors. That description records one place and one installation. It does not define every Gilan smokehouse or give a standard architectural plan.

A workshop with several spaces

The Mobandan workshop was more than a single smoking room. The report separates areas for fish preparation and brining, open-air drying, smoking, cold storage and packing. The sequence matters for understanding the building: fish were prepared and salted before they reached the smoke room, then dried in moving air before smoking. The chamber was one stage in a wider family workshop, not a household cooking room.

At this workshop fish hang on wooden rods inside the room and alder sawdust is the named smoke source. The report does not locate a firebox or specify airflow, chamber measurements, fuel quantities or an operating temperature. Those gaps prevent a reconstruction of the working interior from this account alone.

A regional practice with different building forms

The term refers to smokehouses, not to one fixed structure. A 2021 study sampled seven fish smokehouses in northern Iran, but its published abstract reports energy and economic analysis rather than building design. It confirms that regional facilities are not represented by one photographed room; it cannot be used to fill in a shared floor plan or construction material list.

A 2025 Mehr News photograph from Gilan shows a contemporary smokehouse exterior clad in corrugated metal. Its visible modern panels are useful context for present-day adaptation, but they are not a substitute for the earthen plaster, plant-thatch roof and timber doors recorded at Mobandan. The two records document different examples, and this page keeps them distinct.

What the evidence does not establish

The Mobandan report does not establish when the dudkhāneh form began, how common that roof and wall combination was, or how the room was built. The regional study does not provide an architectural plan. No source consulted here supplies standard dimensions, a specific foundation, a firebox design, cleaning instructions, validated smoke-exposure limits or a food-safety endpoint. This is a descriptive record of a named regional structure and one reported workshop, not a construction or smoking guide.