Talk:Pastrami

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Food Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale.

Perhaps there should be more description of how the meat is prepared.

Contents

[edit] Pastrami etymology

Do the Turks and Romanians have some issue here? Why are the etymologies treated as if theyu were two utterly separate "theories"? --Wetman 07:29, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is one etymology here, but it may be disputed or may have been disputed. I don't think most Romanians or most Turks will raise a ruckus over the etymology of pastrami. The official etymological dictionary of the Romanian language, the Dicţionarul explicativ al limbii române, under the auspices of the Romanian Academy, derives the Romanian word pastramă from Turkish pastirma ([1]). However, I have an American Heritage Dictionary from 1969 that derives English pastrami like this: "Yiddish, from Romanian pastramă, from păstra, 'to preserve' ". So it may not be the Romanians disputing the etymology :) Alexander 007 22:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Comment: the DEX is a biased reference, for political reasons. It was created during the communist era, during times when the regime was trying to quell all nationalistic views, in favour of what the called "the new man". The general idea was that all Romanian words originated from one language or another, in an attempt to emphasise the idea that Romanians were the product of a "melting pot". Aav
No. The general idea was not in any way that "all Romanians words originated from one language or another", and in fact that is a bizarre charge to make against the DEX; aside from the words that came from Latin, the DEX indicates many that are of unknown origin, as well as loanwords. And while I agree very much that the DEX is often overly "cautious" with its etymologies, in this case, the DEX may well be right. Alexander 007 03:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
BTW, my 1986 American Heritage Dictionary has the same pastrami etymology as the one from '69. Alexander 007 22:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
That only means that it simply wasn't revised. Different editions are not written from scratch. Aav
Who said they were written from "scratch", and who was even talking about how the American Heritage Dictionary composes its editions? I stated that the 1969 edition and an edition from 1986 both derive pastrami from Romanian, but don't mention Turkish. However, the Turkish etymology appears quite likely. Alexander 007 03:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to accept the derivation from the Turkish word. I'd long wondered whether the Turkish and the Armenian words noted were related to "pastrami." It would seem more likely that Romanians would borrow a word from their one-time Turkish overlords than that the word would migrate from Romanian to Turkish and then on to Armenian and other languages and peoples not located near the Romanians... though that's obviously by no means impossible. If the derivation is disputed in good faith, though, why *not* have the article simply note the disagreement, setting forth the variant theories? (If one disputes the bona fides of those who dispute the matter, that would be another matter... but... over pastrami?) Xenophon777 12:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slick pastrami

What is responsible for the "oil slick" type of colorful shine that is often seen on pastrami?

I'm not sure what causes it, but it isn't an artifact of the pastrami-making process, I've seen the exact same optical effect on brisket & corned beef, which are the same general part of the late cow. It also shows up on low-grade beef [it was pretty common to see it in my military days, and we got meat that was rejected by prisons near the ports we pulled in to] A similar effect occurs on fresh-cut tuna, and it is caused by tiny drops of fluid exuding from the flesh. I don't think that would happen with pastrami/corned beef/brisket - wrong texture/density. BigFatDave 20:45, 21 October 2005 (UTC)


Salt solubilises the salt-soluble proteins in the muscle. This results in the formation of a matrix that binds the meat particles together, retains water and acts as an emulsifier (basically it forms a film on the surface of the meat, containing mostly water, salt and some proteins). User:aav

[edit] Popular culture section

This section needs to go. It consists merely of two bare-mention pieces of trivia, neither of which references a work that is substantially about pastrami. I have made the change, but it has been reverted twice. I would like to solicit further opinions. --Eyrian 00:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It should stay. I find this trivia section interesting (see Wikipedia:Trivia) and it's not the only article that has one. Mentatus 15:13, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
By the very same document you just cited, it should not stay. WP:TRIVIA also points out that things needs to be important. And neither of these bare-mention references are. As a thought experiment, what if somebody inserted a hundred different times pastrami was mentioned in different popular media. Should all of those stay? Why or why not? If they are trimmed, what criteria would be used? Note that I wouldn't do that, as it's a violation of WP:POINT, but the implications should be considered.--Eyrian 18:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
WP:TRIVIA is not policy. Wikipedia is not a indiscriminate collection of information is policy. The trivia/popular culture section should go. hateless 23:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Some mention of The Hat should go here. --evrik (talk) 18:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pork for Pastrami?

It is a Jewish food, so it would break the Kosher Laws to use pork, and there is no citation when pork being used is mentioned.

That caught my eye, too. This portion of the article does state that "Jewish" and American pastrami is generally made from beef (except where it's made from turkey), but the mentions of pork seem to pertain primarily to Romanian pastrami... uncited, as noted in the comment above. (I would assume that the Jewish community of Romania has been making presumably kosher pastrami for a long, long time...) Since the language is uncited, I guess it could go. If one were a hair less bold, and willing to compromise on this (by the way, the pork language in the article was not put in there by me), then perhaps the following language could be substituted for that entire paragraph:
Unlike kosher pastrami, which is generally a beef product, non-kosher varieties are also produced, which may be made using pork, in addition to mutton or beef.
Of course, I don't have cites, either. Perhaps someone could then provide cites to more specific varieties using pork, mutton, etc. Xenophon777 14:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The 'Preparation' section of the article proper mentions that the most common meat used for pastrami is beef, but there is no mention of what other meats are used. I know for sure that non-kosher uses pork, but what meats are used regionally? Dasai Montale (talk) 20:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio

I think it's unlikely that the material here is taken from the listed website. Looking over revisions [2] and [3] shows the evolutionary way the text took shape on the wiki. Looking over other articles on that site, it seems far more probable that the listed site took the text from Wikipedia, rather than the other way around. --Eyrian 14:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It seems like the articles have similarities but aren't the same at all. There was no reason to mark this article as a copyvio. - Stick Fig 07:47, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The listed page also specifically states "From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection" and "text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License". So, no, not a copyvio. Nchaimov 13:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
    Pastrami is best made as close to the old fashion way as possible. Mass production ruins the flavor of the beef. It is a long and more expensive process, but you are buying a quality product.