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{{short description|Meat preserved by partial drying, seasoning, smoking, and steaming}}
{{use mdy dates|date=March 2020}}
[[File:Ben's Best Deli Rego Park pastrami sandwich.jpg|thumb|right|Ben's Best Deli, Rego Park, New York]]
'''Pastrami''' is a type of [[Curing (food preservation)|cured meat]] originating from [[Romania]], usually made from [[beef]] [[brisket]]. The raw meat is [[brining|brined]], partially dried, seasoned with herbs and spices, then [[Smoking (cooking)|smoked]] and steamed. Like [[corned beef]], pastrami was 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 [[Cuisine of New York City|New York City cuisine]], hot pastrami is typically served at [[Delicatessen|delicatessen restaurants]] on sandwiches such as the [[pastrami on rye]].

==Etymology and origin==
[[File:Pastrami Flower.jpg|thumb|left|Slices of pastrami]]
The name pastrami likely comes from the Romanian verb "a păstra", meaning to preserve or to keep,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kurlansky |first=Mark |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xNEaD1g7XScC&dq=pastrami+comes+from+romanian+etymology&pg=PT421 |title=Salt: A World History |date=2011-03-18 |publisher=Knopf Canada |isbn=978-0-307-36979-6 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Saugera">{{Cite book |last=Saugera |first=Valérie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yflKDgAAQBAJ&dq=pastrami+comes+from+romanian+etymology&pg=PA43 |title=Remade in France: Anglicisms in the Lexicon and Morphology of French |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-062554-2 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|website=dexonline|url=https://dexonline.ro/intrare/p%C4%83stra/41409|title=păstra|access-date=2024-09-08}}</ref> referencing a traditional method of meat preservation prevalent before refrigeration. Ultimately, it was probably derived from the Turkish [[pastirma]].<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'', 3rd Edition, 2005, ''s.v.'' 'pastrami'</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nisanyansozluk.com/?k=past%C4%B1rma|title=pastırma|website=www.nisanyansozluk.com|access-date=2017-12-07}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Shortridge |first1=Barbara Gimla |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DsDW7DHknCQC&dq=pastrami+comes+from+romanian+etymology&pg=PA210 |title=The Taste of American Place: A Reader on Regional and Ethnic Foods |last2=Shortridge |first2=James R. |date=1998 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8476-8507-3 |language=en}}</ref>

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, with the Yiddish ''pastrame''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Benor |first=Sarah Bunin |date=2020 |title=Chapter 1: Pastrami, Verklempt, and Tshootspa: Non-Jews' Use of Jewish Language in the United States |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/48742390 |journal=The American Jewish Year Book |volume=120 |pages=3–69 |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-78706-6_1 |jstor=48742390 |issn=0065-8987|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Popescu |first=Floriana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VzJ3DwAAQBAJ&dq=pastrami+comes+from+romanian+etymology&pg=PA201 |title=A Paradigm of Comparative Lexicology |date=2018-11-07 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-5275-2107-0 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Saugera"/> The modified "pastrami" spelling was probably introduced in imitation of the American English [[salami]].<ref>Harry G. Levine, "Pastrami Land, a Deli in New York City", [https://web.archive.org/web/20090205064558/http://dragon.soc.qc.cuny.edu/Staff/levine/Pastrami-Land.pdf ''Contexts'', Summer 2007], p. 68</ref> Romanian Jews immigrated to New York as early as 1872. Among Jewish Romanians, [[goose]] breasts were commonly made into pastrami because they were available. [[beef plate|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.<ref>{{cite web|title=Historical Fact – The Origins of Pastrami|url=http://romaniatourism.com/jewish-heritage.html|access-date=31 August 2015|work=Romania Tourism|quote="Goose-pastrama" was the starting point for American pastrami. The Jewish immigrants who settled in Little Romania brought with them a traditional technique for preserving goose by salting, seasoning, and smoking the meat. However, beef was cheaper and more widely available in America than goose, so pastrama was made with beef brisket instead. Later the name became pastrami—perhaps because it rhymed with "salami" and was sold in the same delicatessens. By the time Little Romania dispersed in the 1940s, New Yorkers from every ethnic background were claiming expertly sliced pastrami as their rightful heritage.}}</ref>

The family of New York's Sussman Volk claims Mr. Volk produced the first{{cn|date=June 2025}} pastrami sandwich in the United States in 1887.{{cn|date=June 2025}} 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.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/bookofnewyorkfir00mosc|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/bookofnewyorkfir00mosc/page/123 123]|quote=pastrami sandwich origin.|title=The Book of New York Firsts|last=Moscow|first=Henry|date=1995|publisher=Syracuse University Press|isbn=9780815603085|language=en}}</ref>{{additional citations needed|date=December 2018}}

==Preparation and serving==
[[File:Canter's Pastrami sandwich.jpg|thumb|right|Pastrami from [[Canter's Deli]]]] [[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, [[round steak|beef round]], and turkey. New York pastrami is generally made from beef navel, which is the ventral part of the plate.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ojc4Uker_V0C&pg=PA450 |title=Encyclopedia of Jewish Food|last=Marks|first=Gil|date=2010-11-17|publisher=Wiley|isbn=9780470943540|language=en}}</ref> It is cured in [[brine]], coated with a mix of spices such as [[garlic]], [[coriander]], [[black pepper]], [[paprika]], [[cloves]], [[allspice]], and [[mustard seed]], and then smoked. Finally, the meat is steamed until the connective tissues within the meat break down into [[gelatin]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blog.thermoworks.com/beef/how-to-make-smoked-pastrami|title=How to Make Smoked Pastrami|last=Earl|first=Martin|date=March 10, 2017 |access-date=27 September 2021}}</ref>[[File:Pastrami (brisket).jpg|left|thumb|Brined and smoked pastrami brisket]]While pastrami is more commonly made with the fat-marbled navel or plate cut, [[Montreal smoked meat]] is made with brisket, in which the amount of fat is more variable.<ref name="sax">{{cite book|title=Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen |first=David |last=Sax |publisher=Mariner Books |date=2010-10-01 |isbn=978-0-547-38644-7}}</ref> This is because "navel is much harder to find in Canada because of its British beef cut tradition". The use of brisket means that smoked meat is "not fattier throughout the cut, but it has a larger cap of fat, and it has a stringier texture, more fibrous. American-style pastrami is more marbled with fat and has a denser texture."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.seriouseats.com/difference-between-pastrami-smoked-meat-katzs-schwartzs-mile-end#toc-meat-in-review | title=What's the Difference Between Pastrami and Montreal Smoked Meat?|author-first1=Ben|author-last1=Jay|date=10 August 2022|website=Serious Eats}}</ref>
Greek immigrants to [[Salt Lake City]] in the early 1960s introduced a [[cheeseburger]] topped with pastrami and a special sauce. The pastrami cheeseburger has since remained a staple of local burger chains in [[Utah]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/dining/29united.html|title=Pastrami Meets Burger in Salt Lake City|last=Edge|first=John T.|date=2009-07-28|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-12-07|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{Commons category|Pastrami}}
{{Cookbook}}
* [[List of dried foods]]
* [[List of smoked foods]]
* {{portal-inline|Food}}

==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Jewish cuisine}}
{{beef}}

[[Category:Smoked meat]]
[[Category:Dried meat]]
[[Category:Beef]]
[[Category:Lunch meat]]
[[Category:Jewish American cuisine]]
[[Category:Turkish words and phrases]]
[[Category:Romanian cuisine]]
[[Category:Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine]]