There are several food faux pas that I don’t get riled about. Want to drink red wine with fish? Okay by me. Want to pre-boil your ribs before grilling them? It’s your life. However, there is one thing that should never be done: putting mayonnaise on a pastrami sandwich.
I’ve made my opinion on mayonnaise known in this blog post. The only appropriate spread for a pastrami sandwich is mustard. Pastrami is well-marbled to begin with. Adding mayonnaise to a pastrami sandwich just adds more greasiness. The acidity of mustard cuts through the richness of the meat.
We thought about going to a relatively new deli in Seattle yesterday. While we were driving there, I looked at the menu on my phone. One of the sandwich items had pastrami with mayonnaise. The horror… We opted not to go there because it didn’t have indoor seating. We went to a Colombian restaurant two doors down instead.
I’m not alone in this aversion to mayo on deli sandwiches. The Metropolitan Diary feature in the New York Times had a scene in a Manhattan deli. A tourist came in and ordered a pastrami on rye with mayo. The man behind the counter had to put the mayonnaise in a cup on the side. He couldn’t bear to put it on the bread himself.
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