These crucial distinctions, however, remained irrelevant through much of the 19th century, since it doesn’t seem that any of the pastirma exported during that period was actually destined for the United States. In fact, I’ve been unable to turn up any advertisements or other references to anything similar in name being sold in this country any earlier than the closing years of the 1890s, when a large wave of Eastern European immigration brought the pastirma-makers themselves to America.
Until the 1870s, the majority of immigrants in the United States had arrived from Germany. German-language New York newspapers were filled with advertisements for grocers or provisioners, listing a wide array of cheeses, sausages, and pickles under the heading “Delicatessen.” “‘Deutsch Delicatessen’ is the sign over a Second Ave. shop,” the New York Tribune noted in 1877, adding, “The window is heaped with huge bologna sausages.” Until the early years of the 20th century, these were known as “delicatessen shops”—retailers of fancy foods, chief among them prepared meats.
