Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day

What the day is

Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day is observed on January 14. Pastrami is beef that has been brined, coated in spice, smoked and then steamed, and every one of those stages is doing something.

Origin and background

It came to the United States with Romanian Jewish immigrants in the late nineteenth century, and the name traces back through Romanian to a Turkish word for pressed, preserved meat. The technique is a preservation method that survived into a era with refrigeration because the result tastes better than the fresh version, which is true of a good deal of cured food.

The cut matters most. Traditional pastrami uses navel, a fatty cut from the belly, while the leaner brisket is now more common in American production. Fat is what keeps the meat edible through the long cook, which is why very lean pastrami disappoints.

The four stages each contribute. The brine, containing curing salt, penetrates the meat and gives it the characteristic pink color that survives cooking. The rub is heavy on coarse black pepper and coriander, which forms a crust. Smoking adds flavor and further dries the surface. The final steaming is the step people skip and the one that matters, because it takes the connective tissue in a tough cut and renders it soft enough to slice without falling apart. Pastrami served without that last stage is chewy.

The assembly is traditionally minimal: hot meat sliced against the grain, rye bread, mustard. The purpose of the mustard and the rye is to cut fat with acid and a caraway-scented bread that can stand up to it. The sandwich is a sound piece of engineering, which is why adding much to it makes it worse.

How to take part

• Buy it hot and freshly sliced rather than pre-packed and cold.
• Ask for it cut against the grain, which decides the texture entirely.
• Take the mustard and skip everything else.
• Steam leftover pastrami rather than microwaving it.
• Try it beside corned beef, which shares the brine and skips the smoke.