Pastrami

Brined, smoked and steamed

Pastrami is the cured, smoked and steamed beef of the New York Jewish delicatessen. The producer that sells it by the pound in New York, Katz's, describes a long sequence: the beef is brined for three weeks, rubbed with spices, smoked over wood, boiled, steamed at the counter and carved by hand. The brine, the spices and the operating details are the producer's own and are kept private, so the account shows the order of the stages, not a formula.

Each stage does a different job. The long brine carries salt through the meat; the spice rub gives the outside its crust of flavour; smoke adds flavour and dries the surface; and boiling or steaming brings the meat to tenderness, so that it can be carved in thin, soft slices. The 2024 origin study's abstract names the same four stages, brined, cured, smoked and then steamed, as the defining feature of the food.

Where the name comes from

Pastrami is often linked to pastirma or basturma, the air-dried cured meat of Turkey and Romania, and to a story of invention in New York. A 2024 article in the European Journal of Food Drink and Society by Angela Hanratty and Diarmuid Cawley questions both. It proposes that the roots lie in two similar meats, pickelfleisch and homen, from Alsace and the south-east of Rhineland-Palatinate, and argues that Ashkenazi Jews carried the methods east from the Rhine valley and then to the United States and Canada, where the deli version took shape. Only the abstract and listing page were read here, so the full argument is not reported.

How it is eaten

Katz's current menu lists a hot pastrami sandwich, pastrami as an option in a Reuben, and a pastrami omelette. Tourisme Montréal separates pastrami from the brisket-centred smoked meat of Montréal, a related deli food with its own makers and methods. The restaurant and visitor-guide descriptions do not describe a universal deli menu, and menus change.

What the sources leave open

No source reviewed gives a complete curing formula, a household smoking schedule, cooking endpoints or storage guidance. Historical attribution and restaurant serving examples are not instructions for home preservation, and smell and colour are not a safety test for cured or smoked meat.