There's some pastramic lore being left out here, but specifically about the horse-cooked beef of the Asian steppe: it's not the animal's sweat that's doing the work. It's the repeated impact of the saddle which cooks the meat. There's a modern-day meme about "slap-cooking" demonstrating how you can impart just enough kinetic energy which is converted to sufficient heat by repeatedly striking just about anything.
But about pastrami itself, I believe the Armenians, because basturma is clearly part of the larger pickling/drying traditions of Eastern Europe like corned beef or Montreal's viande fumee.
There's some pastramic lore being left out here, but specifically about the horse-cooked beef of the Asian steppe: it's not the animal's sweat that's doing the work. It's the repeated impact of the saddle which cooks the meat. There's a modern-day meme about "slap-cooking" demonstrating how you can impart just enough kinetic energy which is converted to sufficient heat by repeatedly striking just about anything. But about pastrami itself, I believe the Armenians, because basturma is clearly part of the larger pickling/drying traditions of Eastern Europe like corned beef or Montreal's viande fumee.