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Pastrami is a popular delicatessen
Delicatessen

Delicatessen is a term meaning "delicacies" or "fine foods". The word entered English via German language,with the old German spelling , plural of Delicatesse "delicacy", ultimately from Latin delicatus....
 meat made from lean red meat
Red Meat

Begun in 1989, Max Cannon's Red Meat is an independent comic strip. It appears in over 75 alternative weeklies and college papers in the United States and in other countries....
, chiefly brisket
Brisket

Brisket is a cut of meat from the breast or lower chest. While all meat animals have a brisket, the term is most often used to describe beef or veal....
.

raw meat is salted (through immersion in a thick brine
Brine

File:Kissingen-Solepumpe-1848.JPGFile:Kissingen-Solepumpe-1848-2.JPGBrine is water Saturation or nearly saturated with a Salt .It is used to preserve vegetables, fish, and meat, in a process known as brining ....
), then partly dried, seasoned with various herbs and spices (such as garlic
Garlic

Allium sativum L., commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion family Alliaceae. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, and chive....
, coriander
Coriander

Coriander is an annual plant herb in the family Apiaceae. It is also known as cilantro, particularly in the USA. Coriander is native to southwestern Asia west to north Africa....
, black pepper
Black pepper

Black pepper is a flowering plant vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning....
, paprika
Paprika

Paprika is a spice made from the grinding of many dried sweet red or green bell peppers . In many European countries, the word paprika also refers to bell peppers themselves....
, cloves, allspice
Allspice

Allspice, also called Jamaica pepper, Kurundu, Myrtle pepper, pimento, or newspice, is a spice which is the dried unripe fruit of the Pimenta dioica plant, a tree native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico and Central America....
, mustard seed
Mustard seed

Mustard seeds are the small seeds of the various mustard plants. The seeds are about 2 mm in diameter, and may be colored from yellowish white to black....
, and others depending on the specific recipe), and smoked.






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Pastrami
Pastrami is a popular delicatessen
Delicatessen

Delicatessen is a term meaning "delicacies" or "fine foods". The word entered English via German language,with the old German spelling , plural of Delicatesse "delicacy", ultimately from Latin delicatus....
 meat made from lean red meat
Red Meat

Begun in 1989, Max Cannon's Red Meat is an independent comic strip. It appears in over 75 alternative weeklies and college papers in the United States and in other countries....
, chiefly brisket
Brisket

Brisket is a cut of meat from the breast or lower chest. While all meat animals have a brisket, the term is most often used to describe beef or veal....
.

Preparation

The raw meat is salted (through immersion in a thick brine
Brine

File:Kissingen-Solepumpe-1848.JPGFile:Kissingen-Solepumpe-1848-2.JPGBrine is water Saturation or nearly saturated with a Salt .It is used to preserve vegetables, fish, and meat, in a process known as brining ....
), then partly dried, seasoned with various herbs and spices (such as garlic
Garlic

Allium sativum L., commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion family Alliaceae. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, and chive....
, coriander
Coriander

Coriander is an annual plant herb in the family Apiaceae. It is also known as cilantro, particularly in the USA. Coriander is native to southwestern Asia west to north Africa....
, black pepper
Black pepper

Black pepper is a flowering plant vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning....
, paprika
Paprika

Paprika is a spice made from the grinding of many dried sweet red or green bell peppers . In many European countries, the word paprika also refers to bell peppers themselves....
, cloves, allspice
Allspice

Allspice, also called Jamaica pepper, Kurundu, Myrtle pepper, pimento, or newspice, is a spice which is the dried unripe fruit of the Pimenta dioica plant, a tree native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico and Central America....
, mustard seed
Mustard seed

Mustard seeds are the small seeds of the various mustard plants. The seeds are about 2 mm in diameter, and may be colored from yellowish white to black....
, and others depending on the specific recipe), and smoked. In Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
 and the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, pastrami is made from beef and the meat is kept hot on a steam table before slicing for serving.

Origin

The English word pastrami is derived from the (pronounced pastróme). Both the dish and the word were brought to the United States with a wave of the Jewish immigration from Bessarabia
Bessarabia

Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic entity in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
 and Romania
Romania

Romania is a country located in Southeastern Europe Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian Mountains, bordering on the Black Sea....
 in the second half of the 19th century; it is a signature dish of the local Jewish cuisine of these regions. The word, however, as used in Yiddish and various languages of the Balkans
Balkans

The Balkans is the historical name of a geographic subregion of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia....
 (e.g. Romanian
Romanian language

Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba rom?na, ) is a Romance languages spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova....
 pastrama, which entered the Russian language
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
 as pastromá), is likely of Turkish
Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other parts of Eastern Europe....
 origin, spread during the period of the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299?1923. It was Treaty of Lausanne by the Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923....
 domination of the region. The dictionary of Yiddish gastronomic terminology
Mordkhe Schaechter

Itsye Mordkhe Schaechter was a leading Yiddish linguist, as well as a writer and educator who spent a lifetime studying, standardizing and teaching the language....
 and the official Romanian etymological dictionary
Dictionarul explicativ al limbii române

File:W?rterbuch DEX 1998.JPGDictionarul explicativ al limbii rom?ne is the most important dictionary of the Romanian language, published by the Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy ....
 both derive the term from Turkish pastirma
Pastirma

Pastirma or bastirma is a highly seasoned, air-dried cured beef in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire countries....
.

An analogous dish is known as basturma in Armenian cuisine and as basterma in the Arab World
Arab world

The Arab World refers to Arabic-speaking countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast....
. Early references in English spelled "pastrama", while its current form is associated with a Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish store selling "pastrami" in New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
 in 1887. It is likely that this spelling was introduced to sound related to the Italian salami
Salami

Salami is Curing sausage, fermentation and air-dried. Historically, salami has been popular among Italian peasants because it can be stored at room temperature for periods of up to a year, supplementing a possibly meager or inconsistent supply of fresh meat....
.

Unlike its Jewish and derivatively modern American counterparts (where pastrami is exclusively a beef dish), in the Romanian tradition, mutton was used and over time pork became the prevalent choice. Romanians distinguish between different kinds of pastrami, depending on the meat used. When not specified, pork is implied.. Romanian pastrami is usually served as a cold cut
Cold cut

Cold cuts is a U.S. term that refers to cheeses or precooked or cured meat, often sausages or meatloaf, that are sliced and usually served cold on sandwiches or on party trays....
 in sandwiches, but it can also be heated and served as a side dish with various foods. One such example is fried pastrami, with corn mamaliga
Mamaliga

Mamaliga is a dish made out of yellow maize traditional for Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. It is better known to the rest of the world in its Italian language form - polenta....
 (similar to the Italian dish polenta
Polenta

Polenta is a dish made from boiled cornmeal. Although the word is borrowed into English language from Italian language, the dish is popular in Italian cuisine, Slovenian cuisine, Savoyard, Swiss cuisine, Austrian cuisine, Portuguese cuisine, Bosnian cuisine, Croatian cuisine , Cuban cuisine, American cuisine, Hungarian cuisine , Serbian cui...
) and green onions.

In North America, pastrami is typically sliced and served hot on rye bread
Rye bread

Rye bread is a type of bread made with various percentages of flour from rye grain. It can be light or dark in color, depending on the type of flour used and the addition of coloring agents, and is typically denser than bread made from wheat flour....
 as Pastrami on rye – a classic New York deli sandwich, sometimes accompanied by cole slaw and Russian dressing
Russian dressing

Russian dressing is an United States tomato-based salad dressing noted for its pungency. It is typically a clear and glistening bright orange-red or burnt red in color....
. Pastrami and coleslaw are also the ingredients of the Rachel sandwich
Reuben sandwich

The Reuben sandwich is a grilled or toasted sandwich made with corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and either Dijon mustard, Russian dressing or Thousand Island dressing....
, a variation of the popular Reuben sandwich that traditionally uses corned beef and sauerkraut. Traditional New York pastrami is made from the navel end of the brisket
Brisket

Brisket is a cut of meat from the breast or lower chest. While all meat animals have a brisket, the term is most often used to describe beef or veal....
, which contains considerably more fat than the chest area. It is first cured in brine like corned beef
Corned beef

In the U.S. and Canada, Corned beef has two meanings. One refers to a cut of beef Curing or Pickling in a seasoned brine. The other use of the term refers to a tinned product generally found with canned goods on supermarket shelves ...
, and then coated with a mix of spices and smoked. In recent years, this version of pastrami has become hard to find, due to the scarcity of old-fashioned Jewish delicatessens.

Turkey pastrami is made by processing turkey breast in a fashion similar to red meat pastrami, simulating the corresponding red meat deli product. Turkey pastrami, and the closely related chicken breast pastrami, are very popular meat products in Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
, mainly because of their low fat content and undisputable kashrut
Kashrut

Kashrut refers to Judaism Taboo food and drink. Food in accord with halakha is termed kosher in English language, from the Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation of the Hebrew language term kash?r , meaning "fit" ....
 status. Israeli pastrama (stress on the second syllable, as in pastrami) is typically served cold in sandwiches on a variety of rolls and buns, including individual-sized baguettes, pita
Pita

Pita is an often round, brown, wheat flatbread made with yeast.Similar to other double-layered flatbread or pocket breads, pita is traditional in many Middle Eastern cuisine and Mediterranean cuisines....
 pockets, focaccia
Focaccia

Focaccia is a flat oven-baked Italian bread, which may be topped with herbs or other ingredients. Focaccia is related to pizza, but not considered to be the same....
 breads, and even croissant
Croissant

A croissant is a buttery flaky pastry, named for its distinctive crescent shape. It is also sometimes called a crescent or crescent roll....
s. It is also a standard ingredient in platters of cold cuts
Cold Cuts

Cold Cuts is a 2002 live album by English acoustic roots duo Show of Hands....
. Beef and pork pastrama is also available in Israel, but on a more limited scale due to health and dietary considerations.

As with corned beef
Corned beef

In the U.S. and Canada, Corned beef has two meanings. One refers to a cut of beef Curing or Pickling in a seasoned brine. The other use of the term refers to a tinned product generally found with canned goods on supermarket shelves ...
, pastrami was created as a method for preserving meat from spoilage in an age before modern refrigeration methods. This technique is now unnecessary, but its unique flavor still attracts many aficionados worldwide.

See also

  • Smoked meat
    Smoked meat

    Smoked meat is a method of preparing red meat which originates in prehistory. Its purpose is to preserve these protein-rich foods, which would otherwise spoil quickly, for long periods of possibly lean times....
  • Pastirma
    Pastirma

    Pastirma or bastirma is a highly seasoned, air-dried cured beef in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire countries....
  • Reuben Sandwich
    Reuben sandwich

    The Reuben sandwich is a grilled or toasted sandwich made with corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and either Dijon mustard, Russian dressing or Thousand Island dressing....