About Pastrami?!

About Pastrami?

Im thinking of doing a morning time wedding in which i′d like to serve a light cocktail with some different varieties of cheese and pastrami. How much pastrami would i need in order to feed about 120 people?

1 day ago
It would be Hot but not IN a sandwich nor wrap. It would be more like a snack in a buffet along with some cheeses and fruit.

Well, first, you have to figure out how many of the 120 would eat the pastrami. Chances are that some will go back for seconds, but there will be many that don't want pastrami at all. Just for argument's sake, let's say 70% will eat pastrami. That's 84 servings.

So how big is a serving? It depends on what you're doing with it, and pastrami can be pretty light. I'd say, go to the store and get a third of a pound and see if it's too much or not. But if it is just right, then you have 84 * 1/3, or 28 pounds of pastrami.

You might be fine with 1/4 pound, or less - it depends how you serve it and slice it. 1/3 pound of pastrami is a goodly amount of meat. Take a couple of dollars and buy some pastrami and figure out how much you want to use per serving - serve that, and then multiply by the number of servings you think you'll need (and unless you're doing a pastrami-lover's convention, I doubt it'll be the full 120).

Good luck!

On edit: You need to give your deli advance notice too. They probably don't have that much on hand, and often they cut pastrami separately. The reason for that (I used to work at one) is that pastrami is just damned messy. You can't cut anything else on the slicer until you fully clean it after pastrami. That's why most delis, unless they specialize in pastrami, have it pre-cut. Turkey, Roast Beef, Ham - not a problem - a quick wipe and you can move on - but pastrami, big mess. So they'll need a heads-up to order it and then slice it for you.