Shish kebab explained

Shish kebab or shish kebap is a popular meal of skewered and grilled cubes of meat.^[1] It can be found in Mediterranean cuisine and it may come from (or vice versa) a dish called souvlaki, found in Greek cuisine.^[2]

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^[3] but there are also versions with various kinds of meat, poultry, or fish.^[4] In Turkey, shish kebab and the vegetables served with it are grilled separately, normally not on the same skewer.^[5]

Etymology

Shish kebab is an English rendering of Turkish: şiş (sword or skewer) and kebap (roasted meat dish), that dates from around the beginning of the 20th century.^[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]

The word kebab alone was already present in English by the late 17th century, from the Arabic: كَبَاب (kabāb), partly through Urdu, Persian and Turkish.^[8] 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.^[9] The oldest known example of Turkmen: şiş, probably originally meaning a pointed stick, comes from the 11th-century Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, attributed to Mahmud of Kashgar.^{[10] [11]}

See also

• Arrosticini
• Souvlaki
• List of kebabs
• List of meat dishes
• Satay

Notes and References

1. Book: John Ayto. The Diner's Dictionary: Word Origins of Food and Drink. 18 October 2012. OUP Oxford. 978-0-19-964024-9. 192–.
2. Davidson, Allen, "The Oxford Companion to Food", p.442.
3. Book: Ozcan Ozan. The Sultan's Kitchen: A Turkish Cookbook. 13 December 2013. Tuttle Publishing. 978-1-4629-0639-0. 146–.
4. Book: Mimi Sheraton. 1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List. 13 January 2015. Workman Publishing Company. 978-0-7611-8306-8. 1090–.
5. Book: Steven Raichlen. The Barbecue! Bible 10th Anniversary Edition. 28 May 2008. Workman Publishing Company. 978-0-7611-5957-5. 214–.
6. Book: Gil. Marks. Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. HMH. 17 November 2010. 9780544186316. Google Books.
7. Book: Sinclair. Lewis. Our Mr. Wrenn – The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man. Read Books Ltd. 11 March 2015. 9781473372498. Google Books.
8. Web site: kebab - definition of kebab in English . https://web.archive.org/web/20170803050611/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/kebab . dead . August 3, 2017 . Oxford Dictionaries . Oxford University Press. August 3, 2017.
9. Nişanyan Sevan, Sözlerin Soyağacı, Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojik Sözlüğü, Online, Book
10. Book: Perry, Charles . Food on the Move. . 1996 . The Horseback Kitchen of Central Asia . 2018-07-16 . 244. 9780907325796 . https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_uYqTiD7SbcQC/page/n245/mode/1up.
11. Web site: 2018-07-16. Nişanyan Sözlük - şiş . Nişanyan Dictionary - shish . tr . Nişanyan Sözlük.