Corn Beef or Pastrami?

Have you even wondered what corn beef or Pastrami is and how it is made?

Lets start with why they call corn beef, corned.
In this case the cows are raised in a corn field and fed corn to make them grow fat. When it is time to harvest the corn, they try to bring the cows out of the fields. They have a special dog, called a corn dog that helps get them together as they are harder to see in the corn fields than if they were just grazing around. Thus the meat from these cattle was called corned beef.

However, there is also a process called corned beef which usually refers to the curing of the meat. This process began before the use of refrigeration and was called dry-curing. In order to preserve what meat the people could obtain back then and be able to hold on to it, they needed something to make it last for a long as possible

To begin with any meat or part of the meat was placed in a salt water solution called brine. Usually the part of the beef used now days is the brisket or round. The meat is pickled it in a brine made with grains of course salt, that resemble grains of sand. In the US we prefer our corned beef highly seasoned. But it other places the corned beef can be imported from south America and may be in cans or chilled packages.

The Irish are known for their corn beef and cabbage especially at Saint Patrick's Day and Easter, but originally it was thought that only Kings could have this delicacy, as the average Irish family could not afford it. The average families in Ireland were lucky to have bacon or pork rind salted or brines to use with their boiled cabbage and potatoes. Even then it was a treat eaten after lent, because during the lentil season meat was forbidden.

One of the most popular forms of corned beef today served in delicatessens is Pastrami. It is sliced and eaten on sandwiches. It too originally was created to stop the meat from spoiling and was spiced with peppercorns. Most corned beef is done using red meat, but it can also be made with turkey. The turkey is ground up and cured in a similar way to the red meat pastrami, but this turkey pastrami has a different flavor and taste. Both are real tasty.