For the Love of Pastrami

My earliest memories of a pastrami sandwich were when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My dad took me to a Marie Calendars restaurant in Southern California.

What I remember most of that lunch was how much pastrami they packed on the sandwich. Oh, and the lemon meringue pie I had for dessert.

I never really thought about what goes into creating the amazing thin beef slices that make up the sandwich. All I knew was that I liked it, and if that is what I was craving, nothing else would do.

The Pastrami at the Carnegie Deli

Although the exact origins of this exact style of preserved meat is a bit vague, it seems that the beginnings of pastrami were the work of the Ottoman Turks, according to “The Artisan Jewish Deli at Home.”

Their methods were passed to the Romanians. But most of the ancient world developed a similar method of using salts to preserve meat.

I was with the migration of Romanian Jews that pastrami came to the shores of the New World. They switched from using goose to using cheep American beef in their recipes.

But legend has it that Mr. Sussman Volk made the sandwich famous. He was asked by a Romanian friend to store luggage in his basement while he returned to Romania for an extended visit. In return, the friend shared his family pastrami recipe with Volk. In 1887 Volk began producing pastrami in his New York butcher shop.

It became so popular; he began serving it sliced in sandwiches. He added seating to the shop and turned it into a restaurant.

Today good pastrami can be found in almost any city in the US. 

New York is full of great deli’s; the Carnegie Deli was a landmark for almost 80 years before shuttering its doors in 2016. With their 4-inch-high plie of steaming hot pastrami, they were the king of the sandwich.

In LA, Canter’s Fairfax serves up a meal that is pretty close to the better deli’s in New York.

But for me locally, The Hat Pastrami is the go-to. It’s fast food service, but they do a great job.

Coming to America

So, I’ve been sitting here thinking about the origins of our humble hot dog. Maybe it’s because I’m on day 26 of this government edict for forced solitude, but to me it seems important to see what I can find.

Knott's Berry Farm in SoCal takes the hot dog to it's "berry best." Hot Dog with Boysenberry jam and Boysenberry bread bun. 

There are many stories about the beginnings of the American version of the frankfurter, most of which seem to be a bit farfetched.

The precursor to the invention of the hot dog is the simple sausage link. When it came into being is anyone’s guess, but let’s just say it was a very long time ago.

None other than Homer writes about cooking sausage in the ancient classic “The Odyssey.” In the story he writes about the first documented wiener roast.

“As when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it quickly roasted. . .”

Close your eyes and you can almost hear the sizzle as the drippings off the roasting meat hit the red-hot coals of the fire.

Attracted by the amazing smells, the Romans picked up on the practice of roasting processed meats in a casing over an open fire, most likely because it was, in fact, delicious.

As the Romans conquered most of the known world, they introduced the civilized world to the concept of the sausage, (of course there is nothing to say other cultures in other parts of the world didn’t independently develop a similar method of curing and cooking meats).

The sausage finally achieved greatness when the meat forming process was turned over to the same people who gave us Octoberfest, the Germans. Great beer, warm, salty pretzels, and nice hot bratwurst.

But how did we get from the bratwurst to the “American” hot dog?

According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council:

“Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, is traditionally credited with originating the frankfurter. However, this claim is disputed by those who assert that the popular sausage - known as a "dachshund" or "little-dog" sausage - was created in the late 1600's by Johann Georghehner, a butcher, living in Coburg, Germany. According to this report, Georghehner later traveled to Frankfurt to promote his new product.”

Finally, the humble hot dog landed on the freedom loving shores of America. Brought over by German immigrants, the hot dog found a home among the working-class citizens of New York. Easy to eat with one hand, cheep and tasty, it made the perfect street food.

I finish this blog entry with a German saying: “Alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei.” (Everything has an ending, but the sausage has two).

Which apparently was made into a song in 1987, go figure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=582FrJaDMOk