Pastirma

Pastirma or Pasterma,[1] also called pastarma,[2] pastırma, pastrma, pastourma,[3] basdirma,[4] basterma,[5] basturma,[6] or aboukh[7] is a highly seasoned, air-dried cured beef that is found in the cuisines of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria, Egypt, Kurdish region, Greece, Cyprus, Iraq, the Levant, North Macedonia, Turkey and Georgia.

[15][better source needed] According to Turkish scholar Biron Kiliç, the term is derived from the Turkic noun bastırma, which means "pressing".

[16][better source needed] The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink writes that pastırma is the word the Ottomans used for a type of Byzantine cured beef that was called paston (παστόν).

[20] Gregory Nagy gives the definition of akropaston as "smoked", describing apakin as "a kind of salami sausage, probably similar to pastourma".

[21] The Oxford Companion for Food says that a Byzantine dried meat delicacy was "a forerunner of the pastirma of modern Turkey".

[31] Other functions of the cemen include improved flavor, characteristic red coloring, prevention of further drying, and antimicrobial effects.

Bezjian recalls that his grandmother used to prepare "basturma omelets fried in olive oil with pieces of lavash bread".

Specific products include Пастърма говежда / Pastarma Govezhda, which was registered as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed in the EU in 2017.

[2] In Turkish cuisine pastırma can be eaten as a breakfast dish, and it is a common ingredient in omelettes, menemen (Turkish-style shakshouka) or a variation of eggs benedict.

In their 1893 report the British Foreign Office note that Kayseri, which they call Cesarea, "is specially renowned for the preparation of basturma (pemmican)".