Pastrami is not Italian

It might sound Italian but pastami is not Italian. According to the Free Dictionary, the word pastrami comes from the “Yiddish pastrame, from Romanian pastramă, from păstra, to preserve, from Vulgar Latin *parsitāre, to spare, save, from parsus, past participle of Latin parcere, to be thrifty with.” Jewish immigrants brought the dish to America and, according to Wikipedia, Early references in English spelled “pastrama”, while its current form is associated with a Jewish store selling “pastrami” in New York City in 1887. It is likely that this spelling was introduced to sound related to the Italian salami.

But what is pastrami? It’s cured lean beef (mutton, turkey or pork) — salted and partially dried raw meat seasoned with herbs and spices, and smoked. Locally, it is available — sliced — in deli shops and cold sections of supermarkets. Even without looking at the label, you know it’s pastrami because of the dark pink color of the meat and the black pepper around the edges –that is it’s most common appearance. But since there is more than one way to make pastrami, it’s appearance may vary depending on how it was cured and what herbs and spices were used.

What’s with the interest in what’s Italian and what’s not? It has something to do with the Mother’s Day gift I received from my husband. Read it and know that we’re gearing up for some really serious Italian cooking at home.

But more than the Italian and non-Italian angle, it is also interesting to note that food preservation even during the pre-refrigerator days was practiced in just about every culture around the world. For that was how pastrami originated. The meat was dried and cured to prevent it from spoiling in much the same way that Filipinos of old salted and dried their fish, a practice that has lived to this day.

What about the sandwich in the photo? Oh, that was today’s lunch. My husband, Speedy, has gone pastrami crazy lately and since Sunday is daddy’s turn to cook day, we had pastrami sandwiches for lunch — a make-your-own-sandwich affair where all the ingredients were laid out on the table and we just picked what we wanted to include in our sandwiches. There were three kinds of bread in the house; I made my pastrami sandwich with focaccia.