[5] Corned beef remains popular worldwide as an ingredient in a variety of regional dishes and as a common part in modern field rations of various armed forces around the world.

Corned beef sourced from cattle reared in Ireland and Scotland was used extensively for civilian and military consumption throughout the British Empire beginning from the 17th century onwards due to its non-perishable nature.

[11] Ireland produced a significant portion of corned beef consumed in the British Empire during the early modern period, using cattle reared locally and salt imported from the Iberian Peninsula and southern France.

[12] Although the consumption of corned beef carried no significant negative connotations in Europe, in European colonies in the Americas it was frequently looked upon with disdain due to being primarily consumed by poor people and slaves.

The British enclosure movement had displaced thousands of rural English families, creating a cheap new labour pool to fill the unskilled jobs in the industrial factories of London, Leeds, Manchester, and Bristol.

This was due to a variety of factors, including the high costs of buying meat in Ireland and the ownership of the majority of Irish farms by Protestant landlords, who marked most of the corned beef produced using their cattle for export.

[12][17] Canned corned beef has long been one of the standard meals included in military field ration packs globally, due to its simplicity and instant preparation.

Astronaut John Young sneaked a contraband corned beef sandwich on board Gemini 3, hiding it in a pocket of his spacesuit.

It is the key ingredient in the grilled Reuben sandwich, consisting of corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Thousand Island or Russian dressing on rye bread.

Corned beef hashed with potatoes served with eggs is a common breakfast dish in the United States of America.

Multiple Caribbean nations have their own varied versions of canned corned beef as a dish, common in Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Barbados, and elsewhere.

The appearance of corned beef in Irish cuisine dates to the 12th century in the poem Aislinge Meic Con Glinne or The Vision of MacConglinne.

'"[26] Loof was developed by the IDF in the late 1940s as a kosher form of bully beef, while similar canned meats had earlier been an important component of relief packages sent to Europe and Palestine by Jewish organizations such as Hadassah.

[26] In Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga, colonialism by western powers brought with them something that would change Polynesian diets—canned goods, including the highly prized corned beef.

Corned beef has also become a common dish in Hong Kong cuisine, though it has been heavily adapted in style and preparation to fit local tastes.

It is often served with other "Western" fusion cuisine at cha chaan teng and other cheap restaurants catering to locals.

[28][29] Corned beef is also known as carne norte (alternative spelling: karne norte) locally, literally translating to "northern meat" in Spanish; the term refers to Americans, whom Filipinos referred then as norteamericanos, just like the rest of Spain's colonies, where there is a differentiation between what is norteamericano (Canadian, American, Mexicano, what is centroamericano (Nicaraguense, Costarricense et al.), and what is sudamericano (Colombiano, Equatoriano, Paraguayo, et al.).

The colonial mindset distinction then of what was norteamericano was countries north of the Viceroy's Road (Camino de Virreyes), the route used to transport goods from the Manila Galleon landing in the port of Acapulco overland for Havana via the port of Veracruz (and not the Rio Grande river in Texas today), thus centroamericano meant the other Spanish possessions south of Mexico City.

During World War II (1942–1945), American soldiers brought for themselves, and airdropped from the skies the same corned beef; it was a life-or-death commodity since the Japanese Imperial Army forcibly controlled all food in an effort to subvert any resistance against them.