Skewered Meat, Skewered

February 28, 2024 5:20 AM

Skewered meat is Middle Eastern in origin, but kebabs got their start with the Ottomans. Skewered meat is Greek in origin, from way back. Skewered meat is different when it comes to Persian Kebab. Skewered meat leads to debate. Skewered meat is from the dawn of humanity. Meats on a stick can be many things, including spread on the Silk Road, and the varieties go on and on.

Skewered meat research is ongoing, including the role of the kebab in glocalization.

DİLEK BOZKURT, Arzan, and İsmet Kahraman Arslan. "THE EFFECT OF INTERCULTURAL INTERACTION ON THE GLOCALIZATION OF DÖNER KEBAB." Journal of International Trade, Logistics & Law 9, no. 1 (2023).

posted by cupcakeninja (36 comments total)

This post inspired by my skewered meat research plans for the weekend, which will like center on an America's Test Kitchen recipe for souvlaki involving a marinade that uses honey, a variable that has not come into play with previous studies.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:23 AM on February 28 [6 favorites]

One sympathizes.
posted by Naberius at 5:25 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]

Nothing about corn dogs?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:57 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]

Then Lebanese immigrants brought lamb doner to Mexico and invented the taco al pastor.
posted by thecjm at 6:01 AM on February 28 [11 favorites]

The politics of the region really stand out when the first article says grilled meat comes from 9c BCE Turkey, and then second article says souvlaki was mentioned in the Iliad placing it 300ish years earlier than the Turkish claim.
posted by thecjm at 6:04 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]

In prior related MeFi research:

Gyro, doner kebab and shawarma are all part of the glorious international family of spit roasted meat in a flatbread sandwich. They all mean the same thing, etymologically:

The Turkish word döner comes from dönmek ("to turn" or "to rotate")
Shawarma is an Arabic rendering of Turkish çevirme [tʃeviɾˈme] 'turning'
[Gyro] comes from the Greek γύρος (gyros, 'circle' or 'turn')

posted by zamboni at 6:06 AM on February 28 [9 favorites]

Yeah and not to derail too much, but also adding "archeological site in Turkey from 9c BCE" =/= "Turkish archeological site"

Turkey has an amazing food culture, but I've long ago noticed a jingoistic undercurrent whenever they talk about food and food history.
posted by thecjm at 6:13 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]

thecjm, yeah the competing and expansive claims really jump off the page if you know the history of the region. I often avoid "previously" links because of the lengthening history of MetaFilter, as many subjects are well past the previously-previouslier-previousliest taxonomy, but this was a particularly challenging case--many previouslies and quasi-previouslies by post or comment topic.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:25 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]

My favourite skewered meat is satay.
posted by infini at 6:26 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]

Fun fact: Kobideh's slightly smaller street sibling/cousin is the Luleh kabob, meaning "roll" or "tube" which is also slang for penis. Buen provecho!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:09 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure that "piece of meat (possibly imaginatively spiced) run through with a sharp stick and then turned over a fire until the meat is cooked" is an idea that could have occurred to many, many minds in many, many places between the time when people learned to make fire on purpose, and the time many hundreds of millennia later when the first writing system was invented, allowing some group to claim priority for making the first piece of meat cooked on a stick.

I mean, I'm pretty sure that hominids before anatomically modern humans have been shown to have been fire users. Priority for this "invention" goes to Homo erectus FFS.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:26 AM on February 28 [6 favorites]

Learning the word "glocalization" was a real treat today!
posted by mittens at 7:39 AM on February 28 [6 favorites]

I often avoid "previously" links because of the lengthening history of MetaFilter

If this was in response to my comment, by prior Mefi research, I mean that time I looked up a bunch of vaguely related etymology - it’s actually in a post about French tacos, which is even further from our current topic.
posted by zamboni at 7:53 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]

Claude Maximillian Overton Transpire Dibbler (CMOTD, CMOT, Throat) would be happy to read this...
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 8:05 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]

Priority for this "invention" goes to Homo erectus FFS.

Agreed, and it's rare when a word tells the whole story.

steak (n.)

mid-15c., steke, "thick slice of meat cut for roasting," probably from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse steik "roast meat," related to steikja "to roast on a spit," and ultimately meaning "something stuck" (on a spit), from Proto-Germanic *staiko-, from PIE *steig- "to stick; pointed" (see stick (v.)).
posted by Brian B. at 8:06 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]

I was in Indianapolis last week, and as I walked by a doner kebab truck somewhere downtown, I heard some locals marveling at this "meat-on-a-stick thing".
posted by briank at 8:23 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]

every time I pass a gyro stand I take time to imagine the perfectly cylindrical animal who gave its life so that we might have lunch
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:28 AM on February 28 [8 favorites]

zamboni, it was sort of a split between you and thecjm and myself. I've been thinking about previouslies lately, I guess.
posted by cupcakeninja at 8:52 AM on February 28

Nothing about corn dogs?

Corn dogs are a dumpling
posted by Ultracrepidarian at 8:54 AM on February 28 [7 favorites]

Corn dog as member of the Wellington family
posted by Brian B. at 9:06 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]

Nothing about corn dogs?

Corn dogs are a dumpling

Corndogs are a fritter. Filled with meat. On a stick. But not cooked over a fire, and hence outside the universe of discourse.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:27 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]

Skewered Meat hanzi: 串 (see the two chunks, on the stick?)

My favorite is Japanese yakitori (which is almost always chicken) but I only see this character for BBQ/kebab in China.
posted by Rash at 9:29 AM on February 28 [9 favorites]

Skewered Meat hanzi: 串 (see the two chunks, on the stick?)

The chuan(r) found across China under signs bearing this character are almost always selling skewers in the Uyghur style. The Uyghurs are a Turkic people and their word for it is kawap. The silk road took kebabs both east and west!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:59 AM on February 28 [7 favorites]

doner kebab; we don't know who the donor was
posted by kirkaracha at 10:02 AM on February 28 [8 favorites]

Now I'm hungry, and it's hours until dinner.
I'm dining alone tonight, so I was planning on a garlic burger, but now I'm thinking of trying something new. (for me)
posted by MtDewd at 10:05 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]

"archeological site in Turkey from 9c BCE" =/= "Turkish archeological site"

So what you're saying is that this came from a vendor who turned up to sell lunch to the boffins on the dig? Sounds like a possible relation of C-M-O-T Dibbler indeed.
posted by bonehead at 11:00 AM on February 28

> The chuan(r) found across China under signs bearing this character are almost always selling skewers in the Uyghur style. The Uyghurs are a Turkic people and their word for it is kawap. The silk road took kebabs both east and west!

*Sigh*

Did Native Americans never cook meat on sticks? Aboriginal Australians? Did they get the recipe from the Turks?

People have been cooking skewered meat since before they were anatomically modern people, and claims by this or that currently-existing society to have invented the practice don't pass the laugh test. I have allowed this whole question to have too much rent-free space in my head today. See you in some other thread maybe.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:27 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]

C'mon, people are always making these claims. That's why I included several obviously conflicting ones! It's as silly as "Romans invented fire" or whatever. :-) Food history and culture is interesting, to me, at least, and we are fallible, vainglorious critters, so... Anyhoo, I did go looking for an article like you posted, Aardvark Cheeselog, but I just couldn't find one in time. I appreciate your adding it here.
posted by cupcakeninja at 11:42 AM on February 28

In India and Pakistan, there exist Seekh Kebab, named after the metal rods that are used for the skewer. This recipe from Nik Sharma is so accurate to the flavor of those my grandfather made when I was growing up with that it brought me to tears.
posted by Runes at 2:09 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]

You've inspired me to order kebabs for delivery from a nearby Afghani restaurant, so this post is is by my definition the best of the web.
posted by moonmilk at 2:33 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]

This thread is making me desperately miss the kebab place down the street from where I lived in southeast London almost seven years ago. I can still hear the Turkish owner/manager's "HELLO, MY FRIEND! LARGE LAMB SHISH, NO PEPPERS, NO ONIONS, YEAH?" even now.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:34 PM on February 28 [2 favorites]

Yum
posted by MtDewd at 5:32 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]

Ahem... mom gave me a pack of frozen seekh kabab from her neighbourhood guy when I was leaving Delhi back in Dec. I still have one left ... its melt in your mouth
posted by infini at 12:28 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]

I first knew it as shashlik which apparently is the Russian name.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:31 AM on February 29

I just learned about city chicken.
posted by zamboni at 11:21 AM on February 29

People have been cooking skewered meat since before they were anatomically modern people

Sigh.

Sure, of course they have, but have they been cooking it in a Turkic style and calling it kebab like they do from one end of Eurasia to the other? I'm not sure anyone here is claiming that Turks invented skewering meat to cook it over fire, but they certainly have particular styles that appear to be rather popular with humans all over.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:20 AM on March 7