Corned beef is a salt-cured beef product. The term comes from the treatment of the meat with large grained rock salt, also called “corns” of salt. It features as an ingredient in many cuisines. Most recipes include nitrates or nitrites, which convert the natural hemoglobin in beef to methaemoglobin, giving a pink color. It has been argued that nitrates reduce the risk of dangerous botulism during curing. Beef cured with salt only has a gray color, and is sometimes called “New England corned beef.” Often sugar and spices are also added to recipes for corned beef.

It was popular during both World Wars, when fresh meat was rationed. Corned beef remains popular in the United Kingdom and countries with British culinary traditions and is commonly used in sandwiches, corned beef hash or eaten with chips and pickles. It also remains especially popular in Canada in a variety of dishes, perhaps most prominently Montreal smoked meat. (source)