Shish kebab is a popular meal of skewered and

grilled Grilling is a form of cooking that involves dry heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above, below or from the side. Grilling usually involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, and tends to be used for cooking meat a ...

cubes of meat. It can be found in

Mediterranean cuisine Mediterranean cuisine is the food and methods of preparation used by the people of the Mediterranean Basin. The idea of a Mediterranean cuisine originates with the cookery writer Elizabeth David's book, '' A Book of Mediterranean Food'' (1950 ...

and is similar to or synonymous with dishes called shashlik and

khorovats Khorovats ( hy, խորոված, ) is an Armenian barbecue. The meat may be marinated before grilling, but it does not have to be. It can be made with lamb, pork, beef, chicken, fish, or even veal. This is generally a dish reserved for "festive o ...

, found in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...

region. It is one of the many types of kebab, a range of meat dishes originating in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

. In North American English, the word ''kebab'' alone often refers to shish kebab, though outside of North America, ''kebab'' may also mean

doner kebab Doner kebab (, ; tr, döner or , ), also spelled döner kebab, is a type of kebab, made of meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie. Seasoned meat stacked in the shape of an inverted cone is turned slowly on the rotisserie, next to a vertical co ...

. It is traditionally made of

lamb Lamb or The Lamb may refer to: * A young sheep * Lamb and mutton, the meat of sheep Arts and media Film, television, and theatre * ''The Lamb'' (1915 film), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in his screen debut * ''The Lamb'' (1918 ...

but there are also versions with various kinds of meat, poultry, or fish. In

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

, shish kebab and the vegetables served with it are grilled separately, normally not on the same skewer.

Etymology

''Shish kebab'' is an English rendering of tr, şiş (sword or skewer) and ''kebap'' (roasted meat dish), that dates from around the beginning of the 20th century. According to the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...

'', its earliest known publication in English is in the 1914 novel '' Our Mr. Wrenn'' by

Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...

. The word ''kebab'' alone was already present in English by the late 17th century, from the ar, كَبَاب (''kabāb''), partly through Urdu, Persian and Turkish. Etymologist

Sevan Nişanyan Sevan Nişanyan ( hyw, Սեւան Նշանեան; born 21 December 1956) is a Turkish-Armenian writer and linguist. An author of a number of books ("The Wrong Republic", "The Etymological Dictionary" and others), Nişanyan was awarded the Ayşe ...

states that the word has the equivalent meaning of "frying/burning" with "kabābu" in the old

Akkadian language Akkadian (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218-280 is an extinct East Semitic language th ...

, and "kbabā/כבבא" in

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

.Nişanyan Sevan, Sözlerin Soyağacı, Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojik Sözlüğü
OnlineBook
The oldest known example of , probably originally meaning a pointed stick, comes from the 11th-century ''

Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk The ' ( ar, ديوان لغات الترك, lit=Compendium of the languages of the Turks) is the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, compiled in 1072–74 by the Turkic scholar Mahmud Kashgari who extensively studied the Turkic ...

'', attributed to Mahmud of Kashgar.

Gallery

File:Şiş kebap.jpg, Shish kebab File:Kuzu şiş kebap in Ankara.jpg, Shish kebab in Ankara File:Şiş k.jpg, Lamb shish File:Khorovats.jpg, Armenian khorovats

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sis kebap Iranian cuisine Levantine cuisine Ottoman cuisine Skewered kebabs Turkish cuisine Meat dishes Israeli cuisine Jordanian cuisine Iraqi cuisine Syrian cuisine Palestinian cuisine Lebanese cuisine Egyptian cuisine

Etymology

Gallery

See also

References