Concept

Pastrami

Summary
Pastrami (Romania: pastramă) is a food originating from Romania usually made from beef brisket. Later recipes use lamb, pork, chicken or turkey. The raw meat is brined, partially dried, seasoned with herbs and spices, then smoked and steamed. Like corned beef, pastrami was originally created as a way to preserve meat before the invention of refrigeration. One of the iconic meats of Eastern European cuisine as well as American Jewish cuisine and New York City cuisine, hot pastrami is typically served at delicatessen restaurants on sandwiches such as the pastrami on rye. The name pastrami comes from the Turkish pastırma, derived from the Turkish and Azerbaijan verb bastırma meaning "to press". Wind-dried beef had been made in Anatolia for centuries, and Byzantine dried meat is thought by some to be "one of the forerunners of the pastırma of modern Turkey." Pastrami was introduced to the United States in a wave of Jewish immigration from Bessarabia and Romania in the second half of the 19th century. The modified "pastrami" spelling was probably introduced in imitation of the American English salami. Romanian Jews emigrated to New York as early as 1872. Among Jewish Romanians, goose breasts were commonly made into pastrami because they were available. Beef navel was cheaper than goose meat in America, so the Romanian Jews in America adapted their recipe and began to make the cheaper-alternative beef pastrami. New York's Sussman Volk is generally credited with producing the first pastrami sandwich in the United States in 1887. Volk was a kosher butcher and New York immigrant from Lithuania. According to his descendant Patricia Volk, he prepared pastrami according to the recipe of a Romanian friend and served it on sandwiches out of his butcher shop. The sandwich was so popular that Volk converted the butcher shop into a restaurant to sell pastrami sandwiches. Beef plate is the traditional cut of meat for making pastrami, although it is now common in the United States to see it made from beef brisket, beef round, and turkey.
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