Dagwood, eat your heart out. March 3rd is National Cold Cuts Day. Call them lunch meats, deli meats, sandwich meats or cold cuts. Some like them thick, while others stack them mile high. Others still just like them with cheese and crackers. However you like them, National Cold Cuts Day was made for sandwich and snack makers.
There are the deli staples like the humble turkey and ham. Then there are the culinary delights like salami and prosciutto and flavors that require a more acquired taste like head cheese and braunschweiger. Whatever your taste, there is a cold cut for everyone. Well, everyone except the vegetarian.
Every nationality has a flavor all their own when it comes to seasoning, curing and aging a variety of meats. The flavor is altered by spices, smoking and time. When the animal is butchered as well as temperature and air circulation affect the flavor, too.
It’s practically an art history lesson all rolled into one and at the end of it all there’s mouth watering food that can be enjoyed with friends and a good beverage.
Or, it’s simply a piece of meat meant to make a meal. Breaking bread with friends sounds so much more delightful, though.
One of the most well known cold cuts in the United States due to a famous commercial is bologna. Named for the Italian city of the same name, bologna is similar to an Italian sausage called Mortadella.
Other popular cuts are chicken, roast beef, pastrami, corned beef and pepperoni.
HOW TO OBSERVE
Visit a local deli and enjoy the following recipes:
Cold Cuts Party Salad
Dill Pickle Ham Pinwheels Ham Rollups
Crock Pot BBQ Ham Sandwiches
Five things you should know about (from http://foodimentary.com/):
Cold Cuts
- Cold cuts are sliced, precooked or cured meat, often sausages or meat loaves.
- Usually they are served on sandwiches or a platter with cheese and crackers.
- They are most commonly for sale vacuum-packed at the grocery store or sliced-to-order at the deli.
- Most pre-sliced cold cuts are higher in fat, nitrates, and sodium than those that are sliced to order.
- The CDC advises that those over 50 reheat cold cuts to “steaming hot” 165 °F (73.9 °C) and use them within four days.
On This Day in Food History…
1709 Andreas Sigismund Marggraf was born. A German chemist, in 1747 he extracted sugar from the sugar beet and determined it was identical to cane sugar. It wasn’t until 1802 that the first beet sugar refinery would be built.
1797 The first patent for a washing machine was issued to Nathaniel Briggs
1855 Congress authorized $30,000 to purchase dromedaries (camels) for the military to use in the Southwest.
1879 Elmer McCollum was born. He was a chemist who discovered vitamins A, B and D.
