Basturma (also pastirma or pastourma) is air-dried, salt-cured beef (Bos taurus) sheathed in chemen — a thick, rust-red paste of ground fenugreek, paprika, garlic and cumin. Pressed, salted and hung to dry for weeks until firm, then coated in the spice crust, it is sliced paper-thin and eaten as a pungent, deeply savoury charcuterie across Armenia, Turkey, the Caucasus, the Levant and the wider eastern Mediterranean.