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There is great pastrami at Chicago-area Jewish delis, but Tribune food critic Nick Kindelsperger says his favorite is made at barbecue joints.

A rumor has been going around that pastrami is not a Jewish soul food but actually the product of Texas. Is there any truth to that rumor?

The origin of pastrami remains something of a mystery. Most accounts will tell you it was directly inspired by the preserved meat called basturma, a lean cut of air-dried beef, which was spread throughout Eastern Europe by the Ottoman Empire over the centuries and then brought to America by Romanian-Jewish immigrants who arrived between 1881 and 1914. There’s no doubt the word pastrami is a cognate of basturma, but there the resemblance ends. In contrast with its dry, thinner-sliced cousin — which is admirable in its own right — pastrami is made with a notably fat-laced beef brisket ...