You can smoke especially fish and meat, to cook, to give flavor and to preserve longer.
To smoke, the fire will not burn, but smolder. The temperature of the smoke may be around 70 degrees Celsius. If you can make a horizontal flue duct you can remove the products to smoke in length instead of height from the fire. Thus, no fat can drip into the fire (and give bursts of flame and to much heat), and the temperature remains lower. The products should not broil or cook, but hang in smoke.
In hot smoking (up to 95 degrees Celsius) the food is steamed.

The duration of the smoke depends on the composition and thickness of the product, temperature, smoke,... and also, of course, your own taste.

Wood of fruit trees, especially cherry, gives a mild sweet flavor and goes well with chicken and ham. Oak is most commonly used for smoking. It gives a brown tint. Walnut gives a redder color.

Green wood chips or sawdust seem to give more smoke but these looks can be deceiving. What you see is steam, not smoke.

‘Smoking is only good for hams.’(Gaby Vanden Berghe)

Fish and meat can be kept very long and stay fresh. As long as it continues to live it’s fresh...
It can be a convenient option to slaughter e.g. with 4 families to turn an animal and to use 1/4th, with an agreed interval. Then you always have fresh and good meat, and you need less processing and storage.

Ham smoking in the (clay) bread oven
Put the meat in the back of the oven on wooden blocks to smoke so that the smoke can be anywhere around there. Burn a fagot on the entrance. Cover the smoldering ash with shavings and sawdust of beech or oak. Close the door, and stop all the cracks. That may remain overnight. Ready.

Confit is a preparation and storage (preserving) method for slowly cooking meat (duck, goose, chicken) under (geese) fat or oil and thus storing it.

First rub the parts in with sea salt, bay leaf, thyme, garlic cloves, black pepper and juniper berries. Pack this and leave this dry marinade cool for up to 48 hours (fridge). Then rub the herbs from the meat. Put in a pot with the herbs at the bottom. Top up with melted goose fat or olive oil. The meat must be covered. Gently cook for three to six hours (max. 85 ° C), do not boil. The (duck) legs are ready when the meat just does not fall off the bone.

Let cool, so that the solidified fat seals the pots. Store in a cool place under 1.5 cm of fat for a few months.