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Corned Beef & Pastrami

Corned beef has its roots in Irish history. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, corned beef and cabbage was a traditional dish served on Easter Sunday in rural Ireland. A more likely scenario is that a piece of salt pork was boiled with cabbage since beef was considered a delicacy reserved for the privileged. Regardless of its origins, corned beef is a mainstay among Irish-Americans as well as everyone else on St. Patricks Day.

The word corned has to do with the method of curing or preserving meat. Before refrigeration, meat was preserved with very coarse salt. The pellets of salt rubbed into the meat’s surface were sometimes the size of corn kernels; hence the term corned’ beef. Today, corned beef is usually brined, yet the corned term remains.

Pastrami is basically corned beef that has been rubbed with additional spices after removing from the curing brine and then slow smoked to infuse flavor and cook the meat. The word pastrami comes from the Romanian word pastra’ meaning to preserve and was translated via Yiddish to pastrami. Another theory is that it was derived from the Turkish word pastirma’ which is a Middle Eastern smoked meat.