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A skewer is a thin metal or wood stick used to hold pieces of food together. The word may sometimes be used as a
metonym Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word "wikt:suit, suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such ...
, to refer to the entire food item served on a skewer, as in "chicken skewers". Skewers are used while grilling or roasting meats and fish, and in other culinary applications. In English, brochette is a borrowing of the French word for skewer. In cookery, ''en brochette'' means 'on a skewer', and describes the form of a dish or the method of cooking and serving pieces of food, especially grilled meat or seafood, on skewers; for example "lamb cubes en brochette". Skewers are often used in a variety of kebab dishes.


Utensil

Metal skewers are typically stainless steel rods with a pointed tip on one end and a grip of some kind on the other end for ease of removing the food. Non-metallic skewers are often made from
bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...
, as well as
hardwood Hardwood is wood from Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...
s such as birch, beech, or other suitable wood. Prior to grilling, wooden skewers may be soaked in water to avoid burning. A related device is the rotisserie or spit, a large rod that rotates meat while it cooks.


History

At the 300,000-year-old Schöningen site in Germany. A stick with a burnt tip was suggested to have been used to cook meat over a fire, though later scholars have questioned this interpretation. Excavations of the Minoan settlement of Akrotiri unearthed stone " fire dogs" used before the 17th century BCE. In these supports there are pairs of indentations that may have been used for holding skewers.
Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...
in ''
Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...
'' (1.465) mentions pieces of meat roasted on spits (, ). In Classical Greece, a small spit or skewer was known as (), and Aristophanes mentions such skewers being used to roast thrushes. The story is often told of medieval Middle Eastern soldiers - usually Turkish or Persian, depending on the storyteller – who cooked meat skewered on their swords. One of the most well-known skewered foods around the world is the shish kebab. The earliest literary evidence for the Turkish word (shish) as a food utensil comes from the 11th-century , attributed to Mahmud of Kashgar. He defines shish as both a skewer and 'tool for arranging noodles' (), though he is unique in this regard as all subsequent known historical references to ''shish'' define it as a skewer.


Examples of skewered foods


Kebab

A large variety of dishes cooked on skewers are kebabs (meat dishes prevalent in Middle Eastern cuisine and the
Muslim world The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...
), or derived from them. Examples include Turkish '' shish kebab'', Iranian '' jujeh kabab'', Chinese '' chuan'', and Southeast Asian satay. However, ''kebab'' is not synonymous with "skewered food", and many kebab dishes such as chapli kebab are not cooked on skewers. On the other hand, English speakers may sometimes use the word ''kebab'' to refer to any food on a skewer.


Other

Dishes, other than kebabs, prepared with skewers include American city chicken and corn dog, Brazilian ''
churrasco ''Churrasco'' (, ) is the Portuguese and Spanish name for grilled beef prominent in South American and Iberian cuisines, and in particular in Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. The term is also used in other Spanish- and Por ...
'', indigenous Peruvian '' anticucho'', Indonesian '' satay'', Italian '' arrosticini'', Greek '' souvlaki'', Japanese '' kushiyaki'' and '' kushikatsu'', Korean '' jeok'' and '' kkochi'', Nepali '' sekuwa'', Portuguese '' espetada'', Serbian '' ražnjići'', Vietnamese '' nem nướng'' and '' chạo tôm'', Chinese '' shaokao,'' and Malaysian-Singaporean '' Lok-lok''. Appetizers and hors d'oeuvres may often be skewered together with small sticks or toothpicks; the Spanish pincho is named after such a skewer. Small, often decorative, skewers of glass, metal, wood or bamboo known as olive picks or cocktail sticks are used for garnishes on
cocktail A cocktail is a mixed drink, usually alcoholic beverage, alcoholic. Most commonly, a cocktail is a combination of one or more liquor, spirits mixed with other ingredients, such as juices, flavored syrups, tonic water, Shrub (drink), shrubs, and ...
s and other
alcoholic beverage Drinks containing alcohol (drug), alcohol are typically divided into three classes—beers, wines, and Distilled beverage, spirits—with alcohol content typically between 3% and 50%. Drinks with less than 0.5% are sometimes considered Non-al ...
s. Many types of snack food, such as candy apples, bananacue, '' ginanggang'', '' elote'', , and '' tanghulu'', are sold and served "on a stick" or skewer, especially at outdoor markets, fairs, and sidewalk or roadside stands around the world. File:Chenjeh1.jpg, Chenjeh kebab in
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
File:Seafood skewers.jpg, Seafood skewers sold in South Korea: ''mun-kkochi'' ( giant octopus), ''sora-kkochi'' ( horned turban), and ''jju-kkochi'' ( webfoot octopus). File:Skewered food at Shida Night Market in Taipei.jpg, Fish ball skewers at Shida Night Market in
Taipei , nickname = The City of Azaleas , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country ...
,
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
File:Brochette de dinde sur une assiette pres de Jijel 1.JPG, Khebab from Algeria


See also

* Barbecue * Mixed grill


References


External links

{{Commons category multi, Kebabs, Skewers Food preparation utensils Eating utensils