Brain And Smoke-Tanning
| Field | Clothing |
| Went Obsolete | Not obsolete, but arcane |
| Made Obsolete By | Commercial tanning |
| Knowledge Assumed | Kitchen Alchemy and Elbow Grease |
| When useful | Still used in some places |
Making leather used to involve aging (rotting) a hide in ashes and water, scraping it, then smearing brains on it to tan it. Smoke tanning is optional, to colour and preserve.
It realliy is amazing to see how brain transforms a piece of meat into smooth leather in just a day. This is still done, though I am sure you have to get brains from hunters nowadays, given the risk of BSE (Last time I bought it from a butcher was in 2000). One animal's brain is just enough to tan its own hide.
I have never smoke tanned, but I was told the colour of rotted wood you use to make the smoke will determine the colour the hide takes on. Smoke tanned hides have a distinctive and wonderful smell.