Montreal Smoked Meat

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Montreal Smoked Meat

Montreal Smoked Meat
© Denzil Green


Montreal Smoked Meat is a deli sandwich meat.

It can be thought of an either an unsmoked version of wet-cured Pastrami, or deli-style corned beef.

It is moist, and has a milder, sweeter, less spicy -- some say blander -- taste than pastrami. Good Montreal Smoked Meat should be tender, not chewy, and pinkish in colour. The pink colour comes from nitrates used in the cure, which convert to nitrites.

It is not at all, despite its name, a "smoked meat" in the sense that people from anywhere else in the world would think of the meaning of "smoked." It has no resemblance to a true smoked meat. The word "smoked", some speculate, came from a series of mistranslation from Romanian to Yiddish to Québecois and back to Yiddish. The only smoking it gets is from fat spluttering in the oven as it is baked -- no more smoking than a Sunday roast beef dinner would get.

Pastrami lovers say that Montreal Smoked Meat just doesn't have the same chutzpah as pastrami; and that to them, it even smells a bit like baloney or hot dog wieners. Some say it's good sandwich meat, but not of the mythic proportions that some others feel compelled to want to make it into.

The meat used is beef brisket streaked with fat. Most of the beef used is imported from Alberta, in Canada.

The meat is wet-cured with a spiced brine injected into the meat by machines, then it is rubbed with crushed peppercorns mixed with spices such as coriander, chilli powder, bay leaves, and garlic. The meat is then packed into barrels that are put into large refrigerators, and allowed to cure. Some of the makers, such as Schwartz's, still marinate their brisket for up to 10 days.

Then, the meat is baked in a gas-fired oven for about 4 hours to cook. Though they still call this the "smoking" process, it's actually a misleading term.

The meat is then removed from the oven, and sprayed with cold water to stop the cooking. Then it is vacuum packed for longer storage or shipping, then refrigerated, or just put in the refrigerator as is for more immediate use.

Good smoked meat needs good marbling, though diners are now demanding leaner slices, but the fat is what captures and retains the flavour.

Montreal Smoked Meat is rarely found outside Montreal, though it is now available in a few cities in Canada. (Toronto was always a pastrami city.)

For serving, a whole piece of the meat is steamed for about 1 1/2 hours to warm it again. Some people think that the steaming makes it moist, but remember, any form of heat will dry out meat eventually, and water doesn't make meat moist, only fat does.

It is then sliced thinly against the grain to make it more tender, and served warmed, usually on unbuttered dark rye bread, as Pastrami is.

Smoked Meat Sandwiches often have at least an inch (2 1/2 cm) of the meat piled up in them. In French, you ask for a "sandwich à la viande fumée" or "un smoked meat." It is almost always served with a kosher dill pickle.

In many of the delis, you can order lean, medium or fatty slices of the meat. Beef brisket has more fat on one end than the other, so by specifying, they'll know which part to cut it from for you. Many fans, though, say the lean is too dry.

Purists insist that the only correct beverage to go with it is a Cherry Coke.

The major delis selling it are Schwartz’s (actual name "The Montréal Hebrew Delicatessen", on rue Saint-Laurent) and Dunn’s (4 locations as of 2006, downtown one located on rue Metcalfe.) Other delis are Ben's (corner of rue Metcalfe and de Maisonneuve), Lester's (Bernard Street West), Main (rue Saint-Laurent), Benny's (Victoria Avenue near Van Horne), Snowdon Deli (Snowdon area of Montreal, Decarie near Queen Mary), and Reuben's.

Many fans say to come to one of the delis to get your smoked meat at breakfast if you don't want to wait outside in Montreal's minus 40 C weather later in the day.

You can buy whole uncut pieces or sliced to take away and freeze them.


History
Smoked Meat was born out of the once-large Montréal Jewish community. Ben's claims to have been the first to served Montreal Smoked Meat. As they opened in 1908, well before any of their competitors (Dunn’s Famous opened in 1927; Schwartz's opened in 1928 by Reuben Schwartz), they may have a solid claim.

Acknowlegements


Schwartz, Joe. Montreal Smoked Meat. On the Daily Planet Show. Discovery Channel. 9 December 1996.

Also called:
Viande fumée de Montréal (French) Top...