Shish kebab
Skewered meat dish
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shish kebab or shish kebap is a popular dish of skewered and grilled cubes of meat, originating in the Middle East.[1]
It is one of the many types of kebab, a range of meat dishes originating in the Middle East. In North American English, the word kebab alone often refers to shish kebab, though outside of North America, kebab may also mean doner kebab.
It is traditionally made of lamb[2] but there are also versions with various kinds of meat, poultry, or fish.[3]
Etymology
Two etymologies have been suggested for shish kabob in the Persian dictionary of Dehkhoda: shish being the Persian word "shish" for the number six, which refers to the original six pieces of meat of a standard kabob skewer, or "shish" being derived from Late Middle Persian "Sich" meaning skewer.[4]
The word kebab alone was already present in English by the late 17th century, from the Arabic: كَبَاب (kabāb), partly via Urdu, Persian and Turkish.[5] Etymologist Sevan Nişanyan states that the word has the equivalent meaning of "frying / burning" with kabābu in the old Akkadian language, and kbabā (כבבא) in Aramaic.[6]
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its earliest known publication in English is in the 1914 novel Our Mr. Wrenn by Sinclair Lewis.[7][8]
History
Greece
Kebabs existed as far back as the 17th century BC Minoan civilization.[9] In Homer's Odyssey, there are descriptions of skewering strips of meat for broiling. Clifford A. Wright considers these an early version of shish kebab.[10] In Classical Greece and Hellenistic Greece, kebabs were prepared in ancient Athenian taverna sites. They were grilled on an eschara.[11][12]
Kebabs were also staples in the Byzantine Empire;[13] there is iconographical evidence of Byzantine Greeks preparing them.[10]
Egypt
Several varieties of shish kebab are popular in Egyptian cuisine. Skewers of grilled seasoned ground meat are called kofta. Shish taouk, which are skewers of grilled marinated chicken chunks, are another popular variety of kebab in Egypt.[14]
Gallery
Shish kebab
Shish kebab in Ankara
Lamb shish
