Jewish Invention Myths: Pastrami
Pastrami – just like the bagel – (1) is often claimed to be a ‘food invented by jews’ by jews (2) but this simply isn’t true.
The claim that it is ‘from jews’ is based on the idea that jews from Romania brought over a Romanian jewish delicacy called ‘Pastrama’ in the late nineteenth century which then was sold by jewish delicatessens in American cities.
As Crawford Smith writing for ‘Mashed’ summarizes:
‘According to Serious Eats, deli culture in New York began in the 1800s with German immigrants. These entrepreneurs opened shops to sell a variety of cured meats, pickles, sausages, and other foods they remembered from the old country. After the 1870s, Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe and Romania started arriving in the city in large numbers, bringing local delicacies to the U.S. The Jewish newcomers opened their own delis, which were modeled after the older German shops but sold kosher specialties.
This is when pastrama landed in America, but it's not clear exactly how or why it transformed from the dried meat eaten in Romania to the softer brined, smoked version we know today. Although Katz's Deli and Sussman Volk have both been credited with inventing the American version of pastrami, they both came onto the scene after other butchers were already selling this kind of meat. Whoever came up with the idea first, it's clear that by the turn of the 20th century, kosher butchers in New York were making cured beef with an assertive black pepper rub that modern eaters would recognize as pastrami. While production was centered in New York, by this time, pastrami was also being shipped to Jewish delis in cities across the U.S. as well.’ (3)
This is true as far it goes but typically it leaves out two significant details in that Romanian ‘Pastrama’ – aside from being a non-jewish dish – comes from Romania’s relationship with the Ottoman Empire whose ‘Basturma’ is very similar to what we now called pastrami. (4)
Andrew Silverstein tries to deny this connection by claiming that because ‘Basturma’ is a hard jerky-like meat (albeit produced the same way) then they ‘are quite different’ (5) however even he admits that the food was actually eaten tender and not hard. (6)
The truth is that ‘Bastruma’ is close to Italian ‘Bresaola’ – air-dried salted beef – and is re-tenderized after being dried which is simply a preserved form of pastrami. If we want to go further back Turkish ‘Bastruma’ is actually Armenian ‘Aboukh’ and this is generally considered the origin of pastrami (7) as it was a very popular dish in the Byzantine Empire and is mentioned as long ago as the fifth century A.D.! (8)
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-the-bagel
(2) For example: https://stljewishlight.org/top-story/where-does-pastrami-really-come-from/
(3) https://www.mashed.com/749413/the-untold-truth-of-pastrami/
(4) Ibid.; https://tastecooking.com/pastrami-everything/
(5) https://stljewishlight.org/top-story/where-does-pastrami-really-come-from/
(6) Ibid.
(7) Cf. Ersel Obuz, Levent Akkaya, Veli Gok, 2012, ‘Turkish Pastirma: A Dry-Cured Beef Product’, pp. 708–719 in Y. H. Yui (Ed.), 2012, ‘Handbook of Meat and Meat Processing’, 2nd Edition, CRC Press: Boca Raton
(8) https://armenianprelacy.org/2016/07/08/how-do-you-say-basturma-in-armenian/