Kebab

• 1. Introduction

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  Kebab is not one dish. In the Syrian city of Aleppo alone, cooks are said to make at least twenty-six versions of it. Some are cooked with cherries, some with aubergine, some with chili, parsley and pine nuts, and one style is made with truffles. The word covers a whole family of roasted meat dishes that began in the Middle East. Today it stretches from Persian rice platters to Indonesian street skewers to sandwiches sold in European cities. How did a word that once meant burning end up attached to so many tables? Who first set meat spinning upright on a spit, and why do Greeks and Turks still argue about it? And why has a simple dish ended up in political fights as well as in restaurants?

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• 2. Ancient Roots

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  The Babylonian Talmud contains a warning that Temple offerings must not be kabbaba, which means burned. That word belongs to a very old family. Linguists trace it back to the prehistoric Proto-Afroasiatic root kab, meaning to burn or roast. Akkadian had kabābu, with a sense of frying or burning, and Aramaic had kbabā.

  Kyssa-i Yusuf, a Turkish text from the 14th century, already uses the word, though still in its Persian form. Linguist Sevan Nişanyan says Turkish kebap comes from Persian kabāb, meaning roasted meat. Food historian Gil Marks sees the medieval Arabic and Turkish terms as borrowings from Persian, which probably took the word from Aramaic. English picked it up in the late 17th century, partly through Hindi-Urdu and Persian and partly through Turkish.

  The Oxford English Dictionary records the earliest known printing of shish kebab, from Turkish şiş kebap, in 1914. The Persian dictionary of Dehkhoda offers two origins for shish. One is the Persian word for six, recalling the six pieces of meat on a standard skewer. The other is Late Middle Persian sich, meaning a skewer.

  The dish itself may be far older than any of these words. The Minoan civilization of the 17th century BC is credited with kebabs. Homer's Odyssey describes skewering strips of meat for broiling, which Clifford A. Wright considers an early shish kebab. In Classical and Hellenistic Greece, kebabs were prepared in Athenian taverna sites and grilled on an eschara. Iconographic evidence shows Byzantine Greeks preparing them too.

  In the 10th century, Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq compiled Kitab al-Tabikh, a Baghdad cookbook gathering much of the Mesopotamian, Persian and Arab culinary legacy. It describes kabāb as cut-up meat, either fried in a pan or grilled over a fire. Even then the word did not demand a skewer, and some modern kebab dishes are still baked in a pan or simmered, as in the stew called tas kebab.

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• 3. Persian Rituals

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  Chelow kabab, kabab served with steamed saffroned basmati or Persian rice, is considered the national dish of Iran. Grilled tomatoes sit beside the rice and butter goes on top. An old northern tradition, probably from Tehran, adds a raw egg yolk to the rice. Most restaurants will not serve it that way unless asked. Diners may also reach for somagh, powdered sumac, using a small dash on the rice or a heavy sprinkling on rice and meat, especially red meat.

  Soltani, meaning sultan's feast, is the name for one kabab barg paired with one kabab koobideh. Add a jujeh kabab and the plate becomes Shah abbasi, meaning Shah Abbas' meal. The traditional drink alongside is doogh, a sour yogurt drink with mint and salt.

  The old bazaar tradition turns serving into choreography. The rice, covered with a tin lid, arrives first with its accompaniments. Then the waiter comes with several skewers in his left hand and a piece of nan-e lavash flatbread in his right. He lays a skewer on the rice, pins the meat down with the bread, and pulls the skewer out in one quick motion. Barg and koobideh are the two most common kababs, and each is always served as two skewers. Bazaar kabab restaurants generally sell only those two.

  Kabab koobideh is a skewer about 7-8 inches long, made from ground lamb, beef or chicken. The meat is mixed with parsley, chopped onion, salt, pepper and turmeric until smooth and sticky. One egg holds it together, and the mixture is pressed around the skewer.

  Kabab barg begins with a marinade of half a cup of olive oil, three onions, garlic, half a teaspoon of saffron, salt and black pepper. One kilogram of lamb is cut into pieces 1 cm thick and 4-5 cm long. It rests overnight in a covered container in the refrigerator. The next day it goes onto long, thin metal skewers and is barbecued for 5-10 minutes on each side.

  Jujeh kabab is chicken marinated in minced onion, lemon juice and saffron, then grilled over a fire. Kabab Bakhtiari puts jujeh and barg on the same skewer and takes its name from the Bakhtiari region. Kabab Torsh, from the northern provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran, is known for a sour seasoning based on pomegranate.

  In Iranian Azerbaijan, the city of Binab in East Azerbaijan province gives its name to Binab Kababi, which is famous for its large size.

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• 4. Turkish Inventions

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  In 1867, İskender Efendi took the idea of cağ kebab, lamb roasted on a horizontal rotating spit, and turned it vertical. The result was served with yogurt, tomato sauce and butter, and it became İskender kebap. It originated in Bursa, the same city where the döner kebab was invented in the 19th century. Döner is sliced lamb, beef or chicken roasted slowly on a vertical spinning spit. The Middle Eastern shawarma, Mexican al pastor and Greek gyros are all described as derived from it.

  The original cağ kebab comes from the Erzurum region, where cubes of lamb are roasted on the spit and then moved to a skewer. Its popularity there is rising.

  Adana kebabı takes its name from the Turkish city of Adana. The meat is hand-minced, mounted on a wide iron skewer and grilled over charcoal. A proper version uses only three ingredients: minced fatty lamb, red capsicum and salt. It is generally hot and piquant.

  Some Turkish kebabs barely look like skewers. Testi kebapı, from Central Anatolia and the Mid-Western Black Sea region, cooks meat and vegetables in a clay jug over fire. The jug is sealed with bread dough or foil and broken open at the table, since testi means jug. Buğu kebabı, the steam kebab, is a stew in a pan or earthenware casserole whose lid is sealed so the meat cooks in its own juices. Tekirdağ serves it with cumin and İzmir serves it with mastic. Kağıt kebabı is lamb cooked in a paper wrapping.

  Beyti kebab is ground lamb or beef, grilled on a skewer and often wrapped in lavash with tomato sauce and yogurt. It is traced to the famous Beyti kebab house in Istanbul. Near Ephesus, the towns of Selçuk and Germencik are known for çöp şiş, pounded boneless meat with tomatoes and garlic on wooden skewers.

  The Turkish word şiş means sword or skewer. According to tradition, medieval soldiers invented the dish by grilling meat on their swords over open-field fires. Pork is never used in Turkey. The Pontian Greeks made a similar dish, though they cooked theirs in a saucepan.

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• 5. Neighbors Along the Route

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  In Iraq, the word kebab is kept for skewers of spiced ground lamb, traditionally grilled over natural wood charcoal. Skewers of marinated meat chunks are called tikka there. Egypt reverses the usage. In Egyptian kitchens kebab means skewered chunks of marinated meat, while grilled seasoned ground meat is called kofta. Charcoal gives every one of them its special flavor.

  The Levant adds shish taouk, chicken skewers marinated in olive oil and spices, and lahem meshwi, charcoal-grilled cubes of prime lamb lightly seasoned with herbs.

  Israel received its grilled meat traditions from Mizrahi Jews, who brought them from their native Middle Eastern countries. Elongated skewers of spiced ground meat, called kabab, are now a staple of meat restaurants and the main dish of traditional holiday barbecues. They sit alongside the shishlik, are commonly made of beef, and are almost always served with local pita.

  In the South Caucasus, Armenian and Azerbaijani cooks make oblong, kofta-style minced-meat kebabs called lula or lyulya. Armenians call shish-style kebabs khorovats. They call the döner kebab Karsi khorovats, after the city of Kars, which became known for the dish under the Ottoman Empire.

  Shawarma is very popular across the Levant, yet most countries there do not count it as a kebab at all.

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• 6. South Asian Courts

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  Ibn Battuta, a traveller from the Maghreb, reported that kebab was served in the royal houses of the Delhi Sultanate, which lasted from 1206 to 1526. Even commoners, he wrote, would enjoy it for breakfast with naan. Many modern kebabs in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan trace back to the Mughals and the lasting influence of Mughlai cuisine in medieval India.

  The region's list is long. Seekh kebab is a long skewer of beef mixed with herbs and seasonings, and it is named after the skewer itself. Shami kebab is a small patty of minced beef or chicken with ground chickpeas and spices. Burrah kebab uses goat or lamb chops, liberally marinated and charcoal grilled. Chapli kebab is a spiced, tangy round of ground beef cooked in animal fat, and it is a speciality of Peshawar in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

  In India, Kakori kebab is attributed to the city of Kakori in Uttar Pradesh. It is made of finely ground, soft mince, and legend says it was first prepared for old, toothless pilgrims. Galouti kebab, also called Tunde ke kebab, is native to the Awadh region. It is a small patty of minced beef or chicken.

  In Afghanistan, kebab is found mostly in restaurants and at outdoor stalls, and lamb is the most widely used meat. It is served with naan and only rarely with rice. Customers may sprinkle on sumac or ghora, dried ground sour grapes. Pieces of fat from the sheep's tail, called jijeq, are threaded between the lamb to add flavor. Chapli kebab in eastern Afghanistan follows an original recipe that is half meat or less, with flour making up the rest. That makes it lighter in taste and cheaper.

  Dhaka, the capital of the old Mughal province of Bengal Subah, began producing kebabs under Pakistani and Indian influence, and in Bangladesh most are made from fish or beef. Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim country, uses no pork. Cooks use beef, chicken, lamb, fish and sometimes buffalo. A related food, the tikkia, is often made from potatoes, known as aaloo.

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• 7. Skewers Abroad

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  Javanese street vendors turned Indian kebab into satay, a dish that Indonesia now treats as a national dish. Its arrival coincided with an influx of Indian and Arab traders and immigrants beginning in the 18th century. The same wave brought tongseng and gulai kambing, both built on goat or lamb. Satay is seasoned, skewered and grilled over wood or charcoal, with skewers traditionally cut from the midrib of the coconut palm frond. Soy and peanut sauce is the usual partner, so peanut sauce is often called satay sauce. In Sri Lanka, satay became a staple through the local Malay community.

  In the western Chinese province of Xinjiang, the Uyghur people created chuan, called kawap in Uyghur. It is popular in Chinese Islamic cuisine and has spread across the country as street food. Lamb or mutton is the most traditional choice, seasoned with cumin, which cooks call ziran, along with pepper, sesame and sesame oil.

  In Nigeria, the Hausa people prepare suya, a spicy kebab that is popular across West Africa. In Sudan it is called agashe. Ghana's kyinkyinga is very similar to suya, or the same dish under another name. East Africa has mshikaki. South Africa's sosatie is of Cape Malay origin, and its name combines sate, meaning skewered meat, with saus, meaning spicy sauce. Cooks may skewer lamb, beef or chicken together with dried apricots, red onions and mixed peppers.

  In the Balkans, ćevapi are skinless minced-meat sausages grilled over fire. They began in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Ottoman period and are considered a national dish there and in Serbia. Romania has a similar dish called mititei. Spain's pinchitos, a Moorish-derived dish, are small cubes of meat on a pincho skewer, cooked over charcoal braziers in Andalusia and Extremadura. In Spain pork and chicken are the favorites, and the dish is also extremely popular in Venezuela.

  A vegetarian kebab, made with meat alternatives such as soya protein and cheese, is among the newest variations.

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• 8. Street Food Wars

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  In the 1950s in Greece, the dish was typically served rolled in pita bread, or on a plate with french fries, salads and sauces such as tzatziki. In the 1960s vendors began selling the same style of dish made with souvlaki, which resembles Turkish shish kebab but is usually pork. Around then the Greek word gyros replaced döner kebab, and the Greek version spread, becoming especially popular in North America.

  West Germany had pork gyros established as fast food before döner kebab caught on. During the 1970s, gyros and Italian pizza dominated the German street food market. Then Turkish immigrants in Berlin introduced the German-style döner kebab sandwich in the 1970s. It has become one of the most popular take-away foods in Germany and much of Europe, and it is commonly sold by Turks as a Turkish-German specialty. In Paris, Greek restaurateurs sold sandwich grec, and that name was later replaced by kebab or sandwich turc.

  The true origin of the dish is a topic of sometimes heated debate, at least between Greeks and Turks. In Greece, souvlaki skewers are not properly called kebabs, though English speakers often call them that. In Athens, both types of sandwich may be called souvlaki, with the skewered meat itself called kalamaki.

  Several Italian cities banned kebab shops in order to preserve Italian culinary culture. Many protested against these bans as racist. Kebabs have also been invoked in anti-immigrant rhetoric, especially online, through the slogan "remove kebab".

  The word means different things depending on where it is spoken. In North America, kebab or kabob usually means marinated meat or seafood threaded on a skewer with onions, tomatoes and bell peppers. The traditional Turkish style cooks vegetables on a separate skewer. Outside North America, the same word often means the döner sandwich, and in Germany Arab shops there sell shawarma instead.

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