smoked yeast = bacon yeast = hickory-smoked yeast Notes: This is yeast that's been smoked, giving it a bacon-like flavor. It's used to flavor other dishes. Don't confuse it with active forms of yeast, like the kinds bakers, brewers, and winemakers use. If you eat them, active yeasts will continue to grow in your intestine, robbing your body of valuable nutrients.

http://sonic.net/~alden/LeavenYeast.html

A process for imparting hickory smoke flavor and color to yeast powder comprising extracting an aqueous solution of hickory smoke with diethyl ether to obtain a diethyl ether solution containing the flavor and color components of the smoke dissolved therein, mixing an appropriate volume of ethanol sufficient to dissolve the smoke components therein with the diethyl ether solution to .... :-)

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3615728.html

The idea of the necessity of ‘fortifying’ foods with extra vitamin-power is not new. It is difficult to sort out how much of it is driven by real nutritional requirements, and how much by the desire on the part of industry to make a profit from ‘waste’ or surplus products. One manufacturer came up with an idea to value-add (and presumably profit-add) to the already value-adding ingredient of brewer’s yeast in the 1940’s.

The News of Food column in the New York Times in late 1942 ran an article on the problem of obtaining brewer’s yeast in a palatable form “only to be told that the superlative source of the vitamin B complex is now hickory-smoked.” The story of hickory-smoked yeast was picked up some time later in the same column, and the writer continued:

“As a matter of fact, one company has been smoking it in this way for more than six years, marketing it among a few stores scattered about the city. The yeast – processed without heat so that none of the nutrients are destroyed – is a pale yellow powder, smelling like bacon, and tasting a little like it too. A couple of teaspoons furnish about 200 international units of B-1, which is a little below the daily requirement recommended by the National Research Council. The idea is not to eat the stuff as it comes from the silver container, but to blend it with any foods that combine pleasantly with it.

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2009/01/hickory-smoked-yeast.htm...