Sietsema, who lived in Texas himself before moving to New York, was drawing upon research by Daniel Vaughn of Texas Monthly, who had turned up several examples of grocers and butchers selling pastrami in Texas in the early part of the 20th century. Nick Solares, also at Eater, picked up on the thread recently, interviewing Vaughn for a video piece called “How Pastrami Arrived in New York City,” which repeats the same conjecture about pastrami’s Texan roots. “Pastrami, as we know it in the New York City deli, actually came from Europe through Texas, and then to New York,” Solares proposes. “Czech and German butchers migrated to Texas and brought with them the way that they prepared meats, cured meats, in the Old World.”
Dig deep enough and it becomes clear that pastrami first established its foothold in large northern immigrant centers, like New York, Montreal, and Chicago, and was then taken across the country by a group of national-scale meatpacking companies. And—wait for it—it may have even gotten a little boost from a scandalous murder.
