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Archive 1

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Can any European explain the difference between gyros, kebab and shwarma? This American is still laughing trying to imagine you eating al those little sticks on your pizza! Rmhermen 14:30, Dec 6, 2003 (: Natually, one takes the meat off the stick before putting it on the pizza. Don't they have kababs in America? (heck, I know they do - I can recommend a most excellent Afghan place in Sunnyvale, California) -- Finlay McWalter 15:55, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

SO you are saying that European kebabs are chunks of meat on sticks but the author neglected to mention that in the article? Gyros and schwarma are just sliced meats which was the impression I got that the kebab article was saying. There is no way kebab pizza makes any sense in the US because if it doesn't involve a stick it isn't a kebab. That is the kebab isn't the meat itself, it is the entire presentation. Rmhermen 16:04, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)

Doner Kebab is served with salad in pitta bread and optional sauces. Shawarma is kebab meat rolled into one sandwich roll with salad and sauce.

This picture confirms my suspicion [1]. An American would have no trouble identifying that as gyros. I should note that kebab is always short for shish kebab. This page [2] shows both shish kebab and gyros slices/shwarma. Rmhermen 16:14, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)
Nope - kebab can mean any type of kebab - normally doner, but can be shish or all the other varieties Secretlondon 16:17, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)
(I'm not putting this into the article, as I'm not really super-sure). Doner kebab is slices of meat served in a pita bread. Shish kebab is chunks of meat (and sometimes veggies too) barbequed on a stick. Like much of turkish cuisine, there's a direct equivalent in Greek (and often Lebanese and Egyptian too) cuisine, hence the confusion between gyros and donner kebabs. I imagine the "kebab pizza" is some enterprising late-night-cafe owner's oppertune scheme (curry pizzas are also common in such establishments, as are deep-fried mars-bars and other such dietary horrors) and shouldn't be taken as "genuine turkish". I have no idea what a samak is, however (sounds vaguely vulcan...) -- Finlay McWalter 16:26, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Samak appears to be fish shish kebab which just sounds unnatural. According to the link in the article shwarma doesn't even mean the same thing. The schwarma I have had in America is a pressed loaf differing from gyros only in spices and vegetables. The link claims European schwarma is "not pressed" and falls to pieces when cut. Not the same. Rmhermen 16:34, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)
I should mention that in a fancy sit-down restaurant, they'll give you a shish kebab with the stick still present. In a grotty takeaway place, however, they'll deskewer it for you and put it into a pita (so they don't have drunken people skewering one another with pointy metal or bamboo things). -- Finlay McWalter 16:32, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Worth adding perhaps, but I'm not quite sure about the spelling of this. There is another variety of kebab pretty common around here (The Netherlands) called dürüm kebab. It's regular döner kebab meat with the usual vegetables but instead of a pita bread, they wrap a single piece of (I assume) unrisen and partly baked turkish bread around it. It holds more meat then a normal döner kebab and it's particulary in with turkish people here in The Netherlands. Most places around here dont list it on their menus, it's generally considered a "by turks, for turks" recipe, but they'll gladly serve it to you if you ask for it, even if it isn't on any menu. Not exactly a encyclopedia-worthy bit of text, but a nice little tidbit to know, I guess... :: DarkLordSeth 16:12, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't have any idea what each is, except that shish kebabs are bits of meat and vegetables on sticks and that what I know as 'yiros' (I suppose an alt. spelling of gyros) are bits of meat, tomato, vegetables, and tzatziki in pita bread and that they are delicious.

We're currently calling it a "Döner" not a "Doner". I'm guessing that umlaut over the O is an artifact of this article's odd swedish provenance (rather than an effort to reflect its proper turkish spelling). Unless anyone objects, I intend to replace the o-umlaut with a regular o. -- Finlay McWalter 17:51, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Döner is also the German spelling but it doesn't appear to be an English language spelling. Rmhermen 22:14, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)

Just a note regarding the above. O with an umlaut is a letter of the turkish alphabet, and the correct spelling is Döner, NOT Doner. The pronounciation of the "ö" character in Turkish is the same as in German and as such "Döner" is not pronounced anything remotely close to the "Donna" you hear drunken lager louts ask for in England's kebab houses! I suppose the closest I could indicate in writing would be D+"earn"+"air". I'm sure you all have better things to worry about than how this heart attack on a plate is supposed to be written and pronounced, but I thought to correct your error!

(A friendly passer-by.)

Döner Kebab, which is said to have been invented in Berlin by Turkish immigrants, -- said by who? I've had Döner in Turkey itself, and the Turks themselves trace it back to a chef in Bursa. [3] Jpatokal 00:47, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I believe a gyro has tzaziki in it and a shawarma has hummous in it. Where does a Shish Taouk and a kofte fit into all of this? -AnyonymousCoward

Shish tawook (taouk) is yogurt-marinated chicken on a stick. Kofte appears to be generic for parsley/mint flavored meatballs which are sometimes cooked as "shish kofte". Rmhermen 14:43, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)

What's the real difference between a Kebab and a Souvlaki?

In Australia we have both Kebab's and the Souvlaki. From my research it is looking like there is no difference what so ever. If anyone can tell me if it is a change in the sauce or ingredients that is in it then it would be a big help. In Australia both are meat basically wrapped in bread with the usual tomato, garlic sauce etc.

  • As far as i know, souvlaki is a kind of shish kebab made of pork, which has a Greek origin. There is no other difference i've heard.

Revert

Why did you revert

Kebab is also traditional in Greece, where is it known as "gyros" ("rotate", because of the way the meat is grilled). In France, kebabs are also known as sandwitchs grecs ("Greek sandwitchs")."

I'd think that the perception of wether kebab are seen as imported from Turkey or Greece is something interesting (certainly not a major issue, but yet funny); also, I see the word "gyros" was discussed already, but "sandwitchs grecs" was not. What is so wrong about the above statement ? Rama 11:23, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

sandwitchs grecs is French for gyros, not for kebab and is mentioned on the gyros page already. Rmhermen 04:47, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

Origin of kebab

the word 'kebab' probably comes from the Akkadian language, an extinct East-Semitic language from ancient Mesopotamia (approx. contemporary Iraq & Syria)

According to http://www.iraq4u.com/forum/m_1533/tm.htm and http://www.iraq4u.com/applications/news/anmviewer.asp?a=1380&z=10: "The earliest surviving kebab recipe is from one of the few available medieval Baghdadi cookbooks, the tenth-century Kitab al-Tabeekh (book of cookery) by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq of Baghdad, dealing mainly with urban ninth-century cooking."

ZZyXx 17:58, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)

Change picture?

Well, at first glance this might seem too much as an average hamburger tough kebabs are served that way, but shouldn't the official Wikipedia kebab article have at least the most usual and widespread picture of what you first think of when someone says "kebab": the vertical rotating meat on a stick?

Well, perhaps because the first thing a North American thinks of when you mean "a rotating meat on a stick" is gyros, secondly shwarma

. I think that picture is in the Doner kebab article, though. Now if you could add a picture of a skewer of meat and/or veg (shish kebab) to this article that would be a major improvement. Rmhermen 14:40, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Spelling

While I know its nitpicky, and I'm not going to change it, I think the spelling "kebab" is probably the least used in the places I've lived. Heck, most persian restaurants use kabab or kabob. I should know, I pay attention to these things. I'll give you one guess why: Bobak 03:23, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Google shows 2.7 million for "Kebab" vs. 0.9 million for "Kabob" and 0.39 million for "Kabab". I don't think our spelling is an unusual one in English. Rmhermen 05:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Döner and Shawarma

It is stated that these are similar. Aren't they identical? Bertilvidet 16:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes, sometimes not - is probably the most accurate answer. See discussion on Döner kebab, Shawarma and gyros Rmhermen 18:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Languages

Introduction of this article mentions names of this food in Iran and Pakistan... could we obtain somewhere those names in arabic script? It'd be really nice. --Dijxtra 11:09, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I added the Russian and Ukrainian spellings. As the person above me said, we would like it in arabic and any other language we can get. Tholex 01:12, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

History of the kebab in the west

The souvlaki was probably introduced to the US and Germany through Greek immigrants. The kebab was introduced to the UK, via London, through the Greek Cypriot community (I know that for a fact) who popularised it in the 1970s. Perhaps there are other stories. It would be great to have a fuller picture. Politis

KEBAB CAMES FROM SEMITIC/AKKADIAN WORD KABABU.

Persians moved very late to middle-east(7 th century BC) and taked many semitic words and semitic cultural items(calendar,alphabet,assyrian bull,griffin,nawruz[from akitu]ahura mazda[from semitic atra hasis]...)

There is a common semitic root KBB which means to grill(arabic kabbaba=to grill)and no iranian or indo-iranian etymology,it's one of the many semitic loanwords in persian and iranian languages.

So please correct the etymology section.

Reply: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.99.30.61 (talk) 00:17, 26 September 2010 (UTC) Your statement is wrong and cannot be connected to where the word comes from. The arabic/semitic language has taken many Persians words as well. The ancient Persians spread their language and culture to other parts of the Iranian plateau through conquest and assimilated local Iranic and non-Iranic groups over time. This process of assimilation continued in the face of Greek, Arab, Mongol and Turkic invasions and continued right up to Islamic times. Also please avoid using capital letters in the title.

Source: http://www.iranologie.com/history/history9.html , http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v13f2/v13f2024i.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.99.30.61 (talk) 00:16, 26 September 2010 (UTC) Humanbyrace (talk) 15:43, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


You are wrong. Persians were on the Iranian plateau, at the very latest, from the 850 BC, and more likely as early at the 1st millenium BC. More importantly, those elements that you suggest as being Semetic, actually have original influences from 'proto-Elamite' (more properly, 'Susanian') cultures. The Sun Disk with wings, bulls, man-animal hybrids (including scorpion man) are older than Assyrians and even go back into pre-history. Sumerian art was heavily influenced by proto-elamite art from the Iranian plateau. The town of Susa, and surrounding sites, where the oldest accounting tokens originated, were critical to the development of written language. Of course, there were just as many influences the other way. The Persians, were/are by all means, a Mesopotamian peoples, in the sense that their cultures are directly related to and have cross-influenced each other, and that their genetics are closely related. The Western and Assyriologist treatment, is about 'Easternizing' the Iranian plateau, but the fact remains, that Sumerians, Assyrians, or any of the other cultures in the vicinity, were not autochronous. 2601:882:100:D7B0:A4DF:20FB:D0FE:B547 (talk) 14:00, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Greece

Traditionally known kebabs in Greece are "τας κεμπάπ" (pronounced "tass kebap", =tas kebab), "κεμπάπ" (pronounced "kebap", =kebab in a long skewer ~1 meter) and "Σις κεμπάπ" (pronounced "Ssiss kebap" - with soft "s" not like "sh", =shish kebab).

A picture of "kebap" is here, it is the one in the upper skewer.

Proper Template without Turkish Flag

It is better to remove that template with Turkish flag as the article is not only related to Turkey!--195.140.128.203 12:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You can just add a horizontal template for other relevant cuisines to the bottom of the page. DenizTC 03:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Biased Article

We have already established that the origin of the kebab is disputed, i.e. it is UNCERTAIN. Thus, to stay in line with Wikipedia's NPOV policy, I don't think it's fair to state in the first sentence that it originates in Persia. I can see Perso-centric bias all over this article. For example: "The Persian word was considered more high-toned in the medieval period." Okay, where is the proof for this statement?

This article is in serious need of some refurbishment... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barbar96 (talk • contribs) 16:36, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Please see the new sources added, to the links. Dr. Persi (talk) 16:12, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

the Origin of Kebab

Kebab, is purely Iraqi and it's origin has nothing to do with anywhere else!, Kebab is Akadian word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.18.152.150 (talk) 14:26, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, there is a contradiction between this statement: "Kebab (or originally kabab, kabob[1]) is a wide variety of meat dishes originating in the Caucasus[2][3][4][5] and later on adopted in the Middle East, Turkey, South Asia and Asia Minor, that are now found worldwide." and the links [2],[3],[4],[5]. These links all say kebab is originating in Persia. I don't know where it does come from, but i think it's not correct to say it's coming from caucasus with links pointing that it comes from Persia ! That's why i'm changing the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.233.218.32 (talk) 14:49, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Kebab = shish kebab?

The article claims "In English, kebab with no qualification generally refers more specifically to shish kebab ..." and "In English, the word 'kebab' usually refers to shish kebab." Of course, the bar is verifiability not truth and there are three references but I don't believe this. It may be true for US English but in Australia the word kebab without any qualifiers usually means doner kebab. Jimp 09:23, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Maybe by the people out on the piss thinking I fancy a Kebab, sure, but not by the people making them. It's the same in the UK and Germany. Anyone saying to a friend "fancy a Kebab" mean Doner/Döner, but the default Kebab is actually the Shish one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.174.125.51 (talk) 06:27, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

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Armenian

In the quote above, it is written that it is called Shashlik in Armenia (and Georgia, Azerbaijan). Not so. Shashlik is the word in Georgia, and I don't know what they use in Azer, but I suspect Russians call it Shashlik as well, from the Georgian. In Armenia, on the article page, there needs to be more than simply "Khorovadz" for Armenia. It should explain that Khorovadz is the name for solid chunks of mean (or vegetables like entire tomatoes, eggplants or peppers), while Kebab means ground meat - pork is what you'd normally get unless otherwise specified. --RaffiKojian 06:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Historical Sources

In an effort to resolve this controversy, I provide below different opinions on the origins of kebab and its name. Note that Wikipedia WP:NPOV policy is to include all significant opinions whenever facts are disputed.

1. OED: Arab. kabāb (also in Pers. and Urdu), in same sense.

From The Food Timeline:

2. "Kebab. A dish consisting basically of small pieces of meat threaded on to skewers and grilled or roasted. It originated in Turkey and eventually spread to the Balkans and the Middle East. The name is a shortened form of the Tukish sis kebab, sis meaning skewer and kebab meaning roast meat." ---Larousse Gastronomique, completely revised and updated [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 646)

3. "Sis Kebabi...It is said that shish bebab was born over the open-field fires of medieval Turkic soldiers, who used their swords to grill meat. Given the obvious simplicity of spit-roasting meat over a fire, I suspect its genesis is earlier. There is iconographical evidence of Byzantine Greeks cooking shish kebabs. But surely the descriptions for skewering strips of meat for broiling in Homer's Odyssey must count for an early shish kebab." ---A Mediterranean Feast, Clifford A. Wright [William Morrow:New York] 1999 (p. 333)

4. "Kebab. Now an English culinary term usually occurring as sis (or shish) kebab, meaning small chunks of meat grilled on a skewer. Shashlik is a term which means essentially the same a sis kebab but belongs essentially the same as sis kebab but belongs to the countries of the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia)...The word kebab has an interesting history. In the Middle Ages the Arabic word kabab always meant fried meat. The compendious 14th-century dictionary Lisdan al'Arab defines kabab as tabahajah, which is a dish of fried pieces of meat, usually fininshed with some liquid in the cooking. The exact shape of the pieces of meat is not clear. However, since there was a separate class of dish called saraih, which consisted of long and thin strips of meat, and since most modern dishes called kebab call for more or less cubical chunks, it seems likely that kabab was chunks rather than strips. Kabab/kebab is not a common word in the early medieval Arabic books, because the Persian word tabahajah (diminutive of tabah) provided an alternative which was considered more high-toned. It is because of this original meaning that one still finds dishes such as tas kebab (bowl kebab) which are really stews. In the Middle Ages the Arabic word for grilled meat was not kebab but siwa. It was only in the Turkish period that such words as sishkebab or seekh kebab made their appearance. However all this may be, the custom of roasting meat in small chunks on a skewer seems to be very ancient in the Near East. Part of the reason for this may have to do with the urban nature of the civilization there. ..in the Near East they would go to a butcher's shop and buy smaller cuts. However, a more important reason, and the basic one, was surely that fuel has long been in short supply in the Near East..." ---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 429)

5. "Kebab. Roasting marinated meat on spit while basting with fat is described both in Sanskrit and Tamil literature...the kabab has a distinct identity as a dainty from the Middle East which is particularly favoured by the Muslims in India...Ibn Battuta records chicken kaba being served by royal houses during the Sultanate period. Even common folk at kabab and paratas for breakfast, and in Mugal India a few centuries later it was still naan and kabab." ---A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, K. T. Achaya [Oxford University Press:Delhi] 1998 (p. 115)

nadav 07:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

6. То, что шашлык - это важная составная общетюркской кухни, и азербайджанской в частности - это неопровержимо. И даже В.В.Похлебкин, который уже имеет опыт "армянизирования" о шашлыке, пишет: "что касается слова "Шашлык", несмотря на его тюркское происхождение...". Да, правда часто бывает горькой, но иногда ее заменить сладкой ложью бывает невозможно. Обычно, всему новому название дает создатель. Поэтому именно в названиях и надо искать ключи к происхождению. Слово шашлык, безусловно, имеет тюркское происхождение. И сегодня почти в каждой азербайджанской семье имеется шиш (шампор), на котором жарят шишлик или кабаб (в разных районах готовят "шишлик", "шишкабаб" или "кабаб"). Слово "шиш" означает острие, возвышенность и т.п. Например, "уджу шиш агадж" (кол с заостренным концом), "шиш даг" (гора с заостренной вершиной) и т.п. Приставка "~лик" указывает на применимость к чему-либо (эквивалент в русском – слово “для”). Например "этлик хейван" (животное на мясо), "инлик jун" (шерсть для ниток) и т.д. В древнетюркском литературном памятнике "Книга Деде Горгуда" читаем: "Гоjун вергил - бу оглана шишлик олсун" ("Давайте баранов - пусть этому парню на шишлык будет"). (T.Amiraslanov, IRS Magazine, "Explanation to some errors", #4-13, 2002, in Russian) --AdilBaguirov 11:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

RV vandalism

This page gets a lot of vandalism by IP anons and new users, who make weird entries. I reverted the last one, but perhaps placing permanent semi-protection would help reduce vandalism? --AdilBaguirov 10:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

There isn't that much vandalism, they wont protect it yet. Artaxiad 18:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
considering how many IP anons change the page, admins should semi-protect this page to make lives easier for everyone. --AdilBaguirov 19:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah a few more will do it, there isn't that much activity I'm sure they'll reject it. Artaxiad 04:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Iskender kebab

I noticed that the user 219.108.152.25 made some changes on the article by adding an image. Would he/she please take a look at the section Döner kebab in the article? Now the section became unreadable. Haven't we better use this image in the section Kebabs of Turkey which already lacks a photograph? Thanks... Chapultepec 07:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi,

Thanks for contacting me. I am not sure if you know that Iskender kebap is an important kebap which probably changed the world as we know it :). Actually it is the first doner kebab in the world. Thats why I preferred to put it in the doner kebap section. Its not just a kebab of Turkey. It would be a pity to put it on the same level with Alanya kebap, which is probably a touristic variation I have never heard of. I would still prefer it to be in the doner section, and I thought it was readible. If it is not, then I wood recommend we take the other picture of the doner kebap which is taken in Germany out, and put this authentic one. What would you say?

Hi again, finally we could meet :) Of course I know that Iskender kebab is an important one. But, let's not forget. Iskender kebab is a type of döner kebab and has its own sub-section in the section Kebabs of Turkey of the article. And as you can notice this section currently lacks a photograph and needs at least one. So, why should we place the image in the section Döner kebab which already has a photo of its own instead of placing it in the section Kebabs of Turkey ?

As for readability, you can check the previous versions of the article in history. The section Döner kebab is already a short text and one photograph is fair enough for that. When you placed the second one the text went downwards and of course this made the section harder to read.

Thanks. Chapultepec 08:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with our anonymous friend: the doner picture mostly just shows a pita. You have to look hard to tell it's not falafel in there :). I prefer the other picture because it clearly shows the meat and how it was sliced off, which is the defining characteristic of doner kebab. As a visual aid, therefore, it's more useful. nadav 08:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok then, let's remove the other one and relocate the new image to the section döner kebab. Chapultepec 08:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I made the replacement, do you have any comments regarding the image size and title? Chapultepec 08:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

- Hi, again, I dont think iskender kebap is a type of doner kebap, it is the doner kebap. Thats why Id like to see it in the doner section. Also I looked at history and couldnt see why this is unreadable: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kebab&diff=prev&oldid=122940204 - I would recommend we put the pita doner in the kebab variations section, if you still dont like the idea what you last did is also ok by me219.108.152.25 08:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC) the anonym guy

There was a big gap in the text caused by the second image. As for the pita döner, I couldn't find a better place to relocate it. I will have a try to place it under iskender kebab image without spoiling the text. Please wait. Chapultepec 09:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks alot. 219.108.152.25 09:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC)the anonym guy

You're welcome. Eh, artık bugün bir İskender şart oldu...:) Chapultepec 09:22, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Afiyet seker olsun :)

Looks good to me how it is now. BTW, I think I will turn the etymology section into a history section, probably basing it off the Oxford Companion to Food and the other sources I mentioned above.

Branching off list of kebabs

Also, the list of kebab variants is really huge now. Perhaps we should put it into a separate sub-article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nadav1 (talk • contribs) 09:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

Turning the etymology section into a history section is a good idea. But would you please detail your second suggestion? Would you like to turn the section "some kebab variants" into a separate article like kebab variants? Chapultepec 10:02, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I think people come to this page to read about what kebab is, its history and so forth. Obviously the list of variants is very important, but as of now it is the principal part of the article. I propose greatly expanding the history/etymology section and then creating a List of kebab variants page which would be the main article for the current "Some kebab variants" section. The current section would just describe in a few words the most important kinds maybe.
Also, is there a good reason why "Shish kebab in other languages" is taking up all this room or even needs to be here? After all, this is the english wikipedia, so we should list only common english names - just as rice doesn't mention names for rice in other countries. People who want to learn what it's called in Tagalog should go to the corresponding Tagalog page. nadav 10:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I strongly support your idea on "Shish kebab in other languages". Wikipedia is not a multilingual dictionary. What shall we do if the list gets bigger comprising over 100 languages?

As for the second suggestion, namely List of kebab variants, also feasible. But how shall we determine the most important ones? It can be a hard business to do that. Chapultepec 10:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll work on this tomorrow. In the worst case, we can make the current section blank and just say "main article: [[list of.." nadav 11:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, that's also possible. Chapultepec 11:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

changes to etymology

It is already emphasized repeatedly that shish kebab is from Ottoman times and that shish is turkish. We don't need to emphasize it yet again in the etymology. The etymology and history of shish kebab looks complete. What's needed now is more on recipes, ingrediants, and styles. (Also in the woefully unsourced doner kebab section). Then we can move the totally unreferenced list of variants to nother page and this article will suddenly be GA material. nadav 20:59, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Rearrangement of paragraph

After saying that doner kebabs are the most popular take away food in a whole heap of countries, the following sentence "Doner Kebab is largely unknown outside of large cities like NYC" seems very out of place. Please discuss or fix. Bazzbee 124.185.160.96 03:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

any reason for omitting its Arabic?

The word is basically the same in both Arabic, Turkish and Persian [4]. Are there any sober arguments for omitting the former? Bertilvidet 22:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

And it is also the same in Greek: κεμπάπ:). the point is if all names should be included or if only the first, the original one. Hectorian 22:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
If you ask me I would include all the relevant names Alex Bakharev 22:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I have no ojection in either case: i would not mind seeing only the original one, nor would i mind seeing all the relevant names included. what i would mind would be a selection of names, based on (for a food article!) God knows which criteria:) Hectorian 22:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Just for the record, which one do you happen to think is the "original" one. Etymological references differ whether to claim the original is Turkish, Arabic, Persian or include two or all three. Bertilvidet 08:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I do not know... But i guess there must be a source reliable than the others. this one shall be used and the other names to be moved further down. or, if all are reliable enough, all should be including in the lead. Hectorian 08:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Exactly, as the etymologists not are sure about the orgins of its word, we should reflect that rather than just pointing to one of the languages. Thus the article must mention all three languages, namely Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Seems that we agree?? Bertilvidet 09:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Btw, the Turkish Language Coucil does not claim the word (kebap) to be Turkish, but to be Arabic. [5] Bertilvidet 09:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
If even the Turkish Language Council does not calim the word to be turkish, we should not include it. we should only include the two langauges that seem to raise a dispute on the word's origins. i mean, if there are reliable sources claiming that it is arabic and others stating it is persian, then, i see no reason to include languages in which it definately is a borrowing. by taking a look in the list, i see that the word is used in many languages, and, had the article not been protected, i would have included the greek as well:). Hectorian 11:48, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
"The word kabab (کباب) is ultimately from Persian[1][2] but originally meant fried meat, not grilled meat.[3] The Arabic word possibly derives from Aramaic kabbābā, which probably has its origins in Akkadian kabābu meaning "to burn, char".[4] In the 14th century dictionary Lisan al'Arab, kebab is defined to be synonymous with tabahajah, a Persian word for a dish of fried meat pieces. The Persian word was considered more high-toned in the medieval period, and as a result, kebab was used infrequently in Arabic books of that time. Only in the Turkish period, with the appearance of the phrase shish kebab, did kebab gain its current meaning, whereas earlier shiwa` شواء had been the Arabic word for grilled meat. However, kebab still retains its original meaning in the names for stew-like dishes such as tas kebab (bowl kebab).[3] Similarly, "kebab halla" is an Egyptian dish of stewed beef and onions".

I have some notes regarding the above:

  1. We have previously established that the origin is disputed, so why does the opening statement say in such a definite tone that it is ultimately Persian? Shouldn’t the opening statement clearly affirm that the origin is disputed?
  2. Shiwaa’ شِوَاء does not really mean grilled meat, shiwaa’ (if anyone would care to take a look at the dictionaries) is any food that is cooked directly on or in the fire without water or oil or any other liquid – i.e., it includes grilling, roasting and/or baking. It is used for all types of meat, all types of vegetables as well as bread and pastries. A variation of that word, mashaawi, is currently used to refer to grilled food, kabaab being only one type of mashaawi.
  3. I don’t know what kabbaba means in Aramaic or Akkadian, but if someone would like to take a look at Taj Al Aroos, another highly regarded classical Arabic dictionary, it says the following: “الكبَاب، هو اللَّحْمُ يُكَبُّ على الجَمْرِ” – “Kabaab, is meat that is “yukabbu” on fire”; the verb kabba, from which the passive present tense yukabbu has been derived (and ultimately the word kabbab, as the dictionary claims) has the meaning of “throwing/falling on one’s face, turning over and putting/throwing down, lumping/mixing together and throwing down”. Another word derived from the same root (K-B-B) is Kubba (better known to non-Arabs by it’s Lebanese pronunciation “Kibbi”) called so because in the act of making it you would put the burghul around the minced meat and throw it from one hand to the other (kabba) until it takes the required shape. The word kabaab (according to Taj Al Aroos and Al Qamoos Al Muheet) literally means “meat that has been thrown on the fire”.
  4. The claim “The Persian word was considered more high-toned in the medieval period, and as a result, kebab was used infrequently in Arabic books of that time.” is unsubstantiated and I believe irrelevant.
  5. It should be noted that in Arabic Kabaab actually refers to the minced meat type whether grilled, baked, roasted or even fried (yes, sometimes it's fried). The meat pieces (called in the west shis-kabaab) are sometimes called shuqaf (lit. small pieces) but mostly tikka.
  6. On an overall note, I think that the whole section should be re-written as it’s not clear and one needs to read it twice or thrice before one would figure out who says what.

I’d like to point out that I’m not claiming anything, and I frankly don’t care if kabaab turned out to be Persian or Turkish or even Chinese but it might be useful to keep the information accurate. --Maha Odeh (talk) 08:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Doner kebab

Hi Artaxiad,

Firstly, may I learn the reason why you removed the second sentence and all the associated references in the etymology section? Besides, the second sentence that you removed takes its reference from the first source, namely Oxford companion to food, not from the dictionaries.

Secondly, may I learn the reason why you removed the Doner kebab section? There are also a separate section suc as Shish kebab, and lots of secondary sections as well. If the editors improve the article there can be more main sections. But why removing the section instead of improving the article and adding more sections?

Chapultepec 09:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Doner kebab is not notable enough to be there. Secondly shish kebab defiantly is. Doner is not well-known, in some countries it may. The other references were removed for the lack of description provided. Artaxiad 09:09, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi again, let's finish the etymology section at first. I repeat, the second sentence you removed was referenced to the book "Oxford companion to Food", not to the dictionaries. And I think it's credible enough. Chapultepec 09:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

As for the second one, you may be right, shish kebab is more notable and more widely known than doner kebab. But doner kebab is also largely notable in Europe and is known in the US, and as donair in Canada etc. So, we can place shish kebab in the first place as it is more notable, and the latter in the second.

And I repeat, there are also a separate section, and lots of secondary sections as well. If the editors improve the article there can be more main sections. But why removing the section instead of improving the article and adding more sections? --Chapultepec 09:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to add my two cents (excuse the Americanism) but here in the UK, "Kebab" refers almost exlcusively to a Doner Kebab, I can't remember the last time I heard it as a reference to skewered meat. It's certainly notable Triangl (talk) 21:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Ive never heard of shish kebab, where as doner kebab is well known throughout Australia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.27.54.4 (talk) 14:16, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

cheese anyone?

i didnt know there was so much to whine about food. I think this discussion has gotten out of hand. There are more issues regarding pride than accuracy in most of these topics. If everyone wants to be so technical about such irrelevance, I suggest you people communicate in correct grammar. And I also suggest that you research on a topic more simple, yet more original, and authentic, and accurate, and useful, and interesting, and what not. Chopsticks. Chopsticks were made to cook. Chopsticks allowed for simple mechanisms to cook with heat; Asians used 2 sticks at a time rather than only 1, like you people do. They are essentially kebabs but on a more intelligent yet simple level. Asians don't take so much pride in the capabilities of a stick over fire, not the capabilities of 2 sticks over a fire. Because there seems to be such a fuss about technicality, i dare you people to find out where chopsticks were originated and how stupid these discussions can get. Imagine if chopsticks had a discussion this bad. There's a longer history of chopsticks being used. The significance of this tool is far much greater in discovery of the human race. There is more tradition behind chopsticks than any kebab can manage. I thought the kebab's history has many references of sourced written history, but I am disappointed in such noise in these discussions. Once again, chopticks my friend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.80.181.186 (talk) 15:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Etymology

Shash kabab, shash kebab, shish kabob, shish kebab, shashlik here I can say that shash or shish mean six. Usually in Tajikistan shash/shishkabob or shashlik is cooked with 5 pieces of meat and one piece of fat. Shish means six. 1-yak 2-du, 3-se, 4-chor, 5-panj, 6-shish. --Ibrahimjon 13:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

it means skewer. DenizTC 03:59, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

shish comes from arabic/semitic sikh/sikhu=skew

Humanbyrace (talk) 15:45, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Complete reorganization

This article is a complete mess. It's not clear what the subject is, or can be, for one. There should be a thorough overview and the content found here should be distributed among other articles, but I'm not sure if this can be refered to as a simple "split".

Just off the top of my head, a suggestion: "kebab" should be solely an English wikitionary entry. There can be a disambiguation page called "kebab" which links to "Shish kebab" for the north American usage and "Doner kebab" for the British, &c. There can be links to articles about various categories of dishes in different culinary traditions that use the word "kebab" or words related to it in their names; but before that, links to articles containing lists of dishes from various culinary traditions, that would be identified by various groups of native English speakers with phrases that include the English word "kebab". What do you think? 77.77.32.200 (talk) 14:27, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Some Missing Content

Why isn't Iran mentioned in the first paragraph among the other countries? as long as I know it is one of the main countries that kabab is originated from and it must be mentioned there. Also there are no sufficient information about different varieties of this food and specially the Persian ones. Also the persian varieties of kabab are not written among the varieties of the food and you can't see Iran in the history section. I believe some people are intentionally trying to refer this word to a special region or country.--Alireza1366 (talk) 16:46, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

And I am asking myself why you deleted the signature from your talk. Is there anything that worries you? BTW next time write your "comments" to the end of the talk page please... --E4024 (talk) 15:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear anon, we'd be delighted to have more information on kabab in Persia. Everyone can edit Wikipedia, though there are of course rules and standards. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! --Macrakis (talk) 23:20, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I must apologize if I offended anyone because I didn't really want to do so. Actually I didn't delete any signature or similar thing from my comment. I'm completely new to Wikipedia's editing page and I'm not fully aware of your rules. I added the signatures and moved the post to the end of the page. --Alireza1366 (talk) 16:46, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Iran is mentioned in the first sentence of the article. There isn't a separate section yet on the history of Kebab in Iran. Do you know of any good reliable sources that you could use to develop such a section? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 16:56, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi I have added a new section "word" i use the newest source of Linguistics and i think it is useful — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greekogreeko (talk • contribs) 20:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Too many images

Some of these need to be removed or put in gallery tags. They are not matching up with the text and reaching out past section boundaries leaving large blocks of whitespace. Rmhermen (talk) 20:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Unreliable sources

Regarding the origin of kebab, I believe all the listed references are not reliable sources as the authors are food writers, not historians. Borek 9 (talk) 16:35, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

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disambiguation and improvement

I've been doing some editing to help improve the article, I hope with some success. The main problem I saw was that the subject of the article, what the article is about, was ambiguous and unclear. Different people seemed to be writing about different topics. This is understandable, since the word kebab means different things in different places.

In the interests of Wikipedia's goal to provide perspectives that "represent a worldwide view of the subject", I've tried to disambiguate the three main meanings of the word kebab at it relates to English Wikipedia:

  1. In American English, it means mainly shish kebab. But the American idea of what shish kebab is, is different from what it means in Turkey or Iran for example. To Americans, it means "any type of meat cooked on a stick, anywhere in the world". For example, Americans might call the skewered meat that was eaten in Peru kebabs, even though it originated before Columbus came to the Americas. Or, fruit or candy on a stick, in China or Japan. In other words, it can mean "anything that looks sort of like turkish shish kebab, even if it has no relationship to Turkey."
  2. In recent British English, kebab has come to most often mean the sandwiches that are now sold all over Europe, i.e., döner or shawarma. It still recognizes the former usage as shish kebab though, which is the same as the American usage.
  3. In the areas where the word kebab originated, it means many different types of grilled meat dishes. For example, İskender and döner kebab, chelow kebab, and, importantly, also dishes like Bulgarian kebapche and other types of köfte kebab that aren't cooked on a skewer. So it's wrong to call kebab a dish, as it's a more general word for many different dishes, something like the English words roast, grilled meat, or barbeque (though those words also have different meanings). It's also incorrect in this sense to define kebab as only meaning things that are cooked on a skewer.

It's important to mention and disambiguate these different uses of the word. But then, we have to decide what is the basic topic of this article:

  1. is much too broad. Even if there was an article about "any kind of pieces of food cooked or served on a stick, anywhere in the world", it's historically inaccurate to use the word kebab or shish kebab for the title, even if English speakers may have a habit of calling it that. It would need to be called something like "skewered foods". It's conceivable to have a Wikipedia article about "any type of pieces of meat grilled on a skewer, anywhere in history", that is, anything that looks like shish kebab. This is still very broad, since cooking meat on a stick is not even a human invention, but was practiced probably first by homo erectus nearly a million years ago, and certainly by the Neanderthals. Again, using shish kebab or kebab (or souvlaki for that matter) for the title would be incorrect on English Wikipedia. Finally, even if we were to use the American term for the title of an article about any kind of skewered meat, then it should be shish kebab, rather than the shortened kebab, since it is the shish part that refers to the skewer.
  2. is simply a short form or slang for döner kebab, and there is already an article for that.
  3. seems to be, by process of elimination, the only reasonable topic for the kebab article. That is, the cuisine and styles of grilled meat dishes, often but not necessarily cooked on a skewer, which arose in the greater Middle East and are called kebab; and which spread through the world, primarily through Muslim culture. In other words, anything that's given the name kebab in the place where it's served (unless it's the overly-general American term such as "fruit kebabs"), or has a direct and verifiable connection to Middle Eastern cuisine, such as tacos el pastor. In terms of historical information, the article should discuss early usage of the word kebab in connection with cooking, as well as culinary influences around the times and places the term came into use, but only if a direct connection supported by reliable historical sources can be shown. The emphasis is on Middle Eastern influenced grilled meat dishes called by the name kebab, as they are known today. Specifically, prehistoric or ancient examples of meat being cooked on sticks would be outside the scope of the article, since a direct connection generally can't be shown, and more importantly, since the topic of the article is not "meat cooked on a stick", for the reasons given above.

I hope that sounds reasonable. I don't want to impose my own opinions on anyone, and I'm by no means an expert in the subject. It would be great if people could reach a consensus about how best to create a good quality article about this important - and delicious - style of cooking! IamNotU (talk) 18:29, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Changing of paragraph name

We cannot change the paragraph namr "In the Levant and Iraq" to "In the Arab world" since this would exclude Israel, where this dish is present. Alex2006 (talk) 07:18, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Among Arabs... Bataaf van Oranje (talk) 19:52, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
@Prinsgezinde: actually, that very paragraph contradicts you by stating that "Middle Eastern Jews brought various types of kebab from their native lands to Israel, where they are an essential part of the Israeli cuisine". Would using the term "Middle East" (perhaps in addition to "Arab") be inappropriate? LjL (talk) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
That's awkward in general, since Jews would be native to Israel, no? I think it's more likely that Israeli Arabs brought it from their native lands. Bataaf van Oranje (talk) 13:09, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Err, Jews would be native to Israel...? I must be missing something, because Israel as a country didn't exist until the middle of the 20th century, and most of the Jews who moved there came from other places (like Europe), where they were native. Perhaps the ancestors of these Jews were native to the place called Israel, but that doesn't extend to their offspring over centuries. LjL (talk) 15:43, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Nearly a million Mizrahi Jews emmigrated from Arab countries, where their ancestors had lived for thousands of years, to Israel following WWII. They and their descendants make up the majority of the Jewish population of Israel. Furthermore, the information in this section was written about the cuisine of the Levant and Iraq, you can't simply redefine it to include most of North Africa, Yemen, Kuwait, and so on. Please feel free to improve the information and research in the article, in the mean time I'm reverting the name change. IamNotU (talk) 21:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Vandalism since 30th October

Stop vandalizing and starting edit war you've been warned PakePakwan (talk) 15:34, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

That is not how Wikipedia works, the onus of discussion and stopping vandalism is on you, you have been warned on your talk page. Watch your language and tone, you will be blocked in future. Again asking you to use talk page to make further editions, dont push your POV. Barthateslisa (talk) 15:48, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

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Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://sanjivkhamgaonkar.wordpress.com/2010/12/12/the-%E2%80%98insulted%E2%80%99-nawab-vs-the-%E2%80%98toothless%E2%80%99-nawab/. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. IamNotU (talk) 16:52, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

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Short description - kebab should not be described as "skewered meals"

@Seraphim System: Thanks for pointing out that there was a poor-quality self-published source cited, in support of the statement that many kebab dishes are not skewered. I've replaced it with two others, to the Oxford Companion to Food and to Essential Turkish Cusine, with links to their text available via Google Books.

I reverted the addition of the "short description" that was added to the article, taken from the Wikidata project, describing kebab as a "variety of skewered meals originating in the Middle East", because "skewered meal" isn't an accurate description of what kebab is. I'm not familiar with the proper use of the "short description" template, nor editing Wikidata, so I just deleted the template, rather than try to change it. Certainly the "origin" given in Wikidata of "Syria" also needs to be fixed! I would suggest the short description should essentially match what's used in the lede, i.e., "various cooked meat dishes, with their origins in Middle Eastern cuisine".

It's true that in English, the word kebab is often understood to mean a type of skewered food. Indeed, the Oxford Companion to Food's entry begins with: "now an English culinary term usually occurring as şiş (or shish) kebab, meaning small chunks of meat grilled on a skewer." However, the subject of the article isn't the English culinary term, but the global concept of kebab. The Companion goes on to explain that kebab has other meanings in other regions, and that historically the category has always included dishes that are not skewered, including various stews, meatballs, and pan-fried or oven-baked dishes.

Especially in Turkish cuisine but also in other regions, there are many such dishes called kebab. For example: Tas kebap, Buğu kebabı, Testi kebab, Sac kebabı, shami kebab, chapli kebab, Kebapche/Ćevapi, Alinazik kebab, skewerless dishes of Patlıcanlı kebap, etc., kabab tabei, çömlek kebab, Ali Pasha kebab, bostan kebab, Hünkar beğendi kebabı, İslim kebabı, and so on. And while one could argue that they are skewered on a rotisserie, in my opinion "skewered meals" does not accurately describe probably the most well known kebabs, döner kebab and its derivatives. --IamNotU (talk) 06:23, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining, I used to eat tas kebab all the time as a child but I didn't know it was called that. I usually just called it "meat and potatos" [6] - I generally thought of kebabs as meat that was prepared by the butcher as "kebab meat" (which is minced by hand), mixed with lamb tail fat, and then cooked on flat skewer, usually over an open flame. Or cubes of meat on a shish. This Oxford Symposium reference generally seemed to confirm that [7] - the main difference it notes between Western and traditional understanding of kebab is the use of tail fat. Thanks for adding additional sources, I will try to work more of these details into the article. Seraphim System (talk) 11:44, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Etymology

It's better for the etymology to be for English - this is sourced to OED. Etymology of how it entered Persian is really beyond the scope of this article. The first sentence can be tweaked somewhat, but OED is for English language etymology so it is much clearer this way then using a source about Persian loanwords. This article is about kebab, not Persian language. Seraphim System (talk) 19:21, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

It's sourced to oxforddictionaries which is not the same. Any thoughts on reliability of oxforddictionaries? Based on recent RS/n discussions OED is in most cases authoritative.Seraphim System (talk) 19:25, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your work on improving the article. When I first started editing it in early 2016, the lede talked primarily about the Western view of kebab (shish kebabs and döner), and the History section described kebab as being essentially Greek in origin, with extensive references to Homer and so on. The article had been a battleground of years-long edit wars over national origins of dishes and names. I have tried, with some success, to create a more international perspective, and to reduce the edit warring by attempting to provide detailed historical and etymological information with quality reliable sources. At the time I wrote some paragraphs above about how I would like the article to move forward, unfortunately nobody replied. There is still a lot of room for improvement, and editors who understand the importance of reliable sources and a neutral point of view are always welcome.
It seems to me there is a good deal of interest (as can be seen on the talk page above) in the historical origins of the dish, or group of dishes, as well as of the name they are called by, and in what ways those are different things. The article currently says that the word kebab is most likely of Arabic origin (does this mean the English word, or the word in general?), but that the dishes themselves are mainly associated with an origin in medieval Turkish and Persian cuisine. I don't see that it's necessary to exclude discussion of the terms in these three languages. By that logic we would also have to exclude the discussion of the Turkish etymology, which I would not want to do. Furthermore it's not necessarily a question of "how it entered Persian". It could be that it entered English mainly through contact with Arabic, but whether it entered Arabic, and thus English, from Persian, as a number of editors have asserted (and edit warred over) is another question. In reviewing this I just re-read the chapter in Gil Marks' encyclopedia, and found that's actually what he says. The OED is a little complicated on the subject, as it has two different entries ("cabob" and "kebab"); the first has "[Arab. kabāb (also in Pers. and Urdu), in same sense.]", which I'm not quite sure how to interpret. In any case I would prefer that the article address the question and give the best answer possible as to what the scholarly consensus is. If the answer is "we don't know for sure", or "reliable sources disagree", then we should say that and back it up giving due weight to said sources (possibly including F. Steingass'), so as to provide a solid basis for evaluating any future origin claims, and not leave it open to unsourced edit warring.
A related issue is the use of eg. "Arabic: كَبَاب" in the article's opening sentence. MOS:FORLANG says "Do not include foreign equivalents in the lead sentence just to show etymology." As the article states that the subject (kebab), as opposed to the word (kebab), is more closely associated with Turkish and Persian cuisine than Arab, we would likely have to add those as well, and this becomes an invitation to add ever more languages, which has already started to happen today, and eventually runs out of control as it has in shashlik. I would prefer to use only the English term in the opening sentence. --IamNotU (talk) 23:05, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
Etymology sections in food articles are almost always undue anyway - academic sources about food history and medieval cuisine rarely discuss etymology in detail. These sections are added as though the etymology implies something significant about the dishes origins, but we really only have first known recipes for that. The lack of discussion of etmology in authoritative reliable sources usually invites more bad behavior. We have OED for English but it would be OR to start trying to tie them together based on dictionaries without secondary sources. We can't say a word entered Persian from Arabic based on one source, then from Arabic to Turkish and finally to English. I would support removing etymology sections from food articles all together, or just including a brief note from OED about English usage, and reworking the articles to focus more on scholarly research about the primary sources. Seraphim System (talk) 01:20, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Kabob ?

In the article it says that a Kebab is also known as Kabab, Kebap or Kabob. The first three are all detailed as variations on the spelling, which is fair enough, it's coming from different languages. But nowhere in the article, other than on the first line, is there any mention of any country that calls it a Kabob. It should either be referenced or removed. I certainly never heard of a Kabob. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.174.125.51 (talk) 06:24, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

In situations like this of "who could possibly call this that?" Google is your friend. And if you've ever heard the word spoken aloud in English, it usually sounds like "kabob" regardless of the spelling. — LlywelynII 08:09, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
I have to disagree that when spoken aloud in English it usually sounds like "kebob". Kebob is an American-English pronunciation because the "a" in kebab is not pronounced a flat "a" (hat, cat etc) but a long "a" as the "a" in father (more like a British English "o"). This is not the first time that a spelling changes in American English because of a pronunciation difference. So you will often (although not exclusively) see the spelling kebob on American menus. This is not a unique issue with American English spellings and pronunciations. In the same way, the secondary distress call, PAN is sometimes mispronounced in American English as PON (for the same reason: the American preference for a long "A" as opposed to a short "a"). 621PWC (talk) 16:15, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


let me clarify this kebab is the verb and kebap is the noun kebob and kebop is how most countries in Africa that don't speak Arab pronounce it except Egypt for some reason(they say kebab and kebap) now If you not of in Africa or Middle East so those are not words in your culture or language using any of those words interchangeably it's "only as wrong as your language teacher is strict" so go ahead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.210.240.53 (talk) 18:55, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

This is English Wikipedia, and all it's doing is giving alternative spellings by which one may commonly come upon the name in English sources. No form of "kebab" is a verb in English. Largoplazo (talk) 19:19, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Claims of kabab being native to Greece

I'd like to see some solid sources to back up the ridiculous claim that kababs are native to Greece and have been attested to since ancient times. It seems more like a case of someone finding a similar food and claiming it as being the same thing as kabab (as in the classical Persian style of shish kabab). IranianGuy (talk) 14:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And reference links 7-10 in this section are making direct reference to the actual works like "The Iliad" which is original research. Who exactly is making the claim that these works are discussing the kabab and that kabab has been existent in Greece since ancient times? IranianGuy (talk) 14:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Ancient Greek ὀβελίσκος (obeliskos) was a small spit, which is of course a variant of kebab. I'm changing wording in history section accordingly. The Cat and the Owl (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I like the fact that an Iranian says that kebab is referenced in Iliad by Homer and I would like to add as a Greek that Börek filled with figs is also referenced by name and description in Plutus (play) by Aristophanes that does not mean that those two dishes are native to Greece as the Greeks had not only already establish trade routes with middle east but also the philosophy of history which included the importance of "the origin of a way" have recorded that those dishes were imported recipes so it's non native of course that doesn't mean that a dish that has been prepared by are people for literal millennias is not now consider "traditional" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.210.240.53 (talk • contribs) 21:45, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Revert

@Wikaviani: I see you have reversed my edit here. Stating Afghanistan is in South Asia, while this is true, it can also be part of Central Asia. Esp., in this case, the Afghan kabeb is much different from the spicier kebab from the Indian subcontinent, and is related to the milder Central Asian styles. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 18:27, 6 January 2019 (UTC))

Hi, this is precisely what makes « South Asia » better than « Indian subcontinent ». Take a look at the definition of South Asia according to Wikipedia. I see no legit reason to replace South Asia with Indian subcontinent, really.---Wikaviani (talk) (contribs) 18:39, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Wikaviani, I understand your point, but my point is most valid in terms of both geography and the styles of kebabs. If you look at the following: Indian kabeb menu, Pakistani kebab menu or Bangadeshi kebab menu, they all note their similarities and mention these types of kebabs native to these nations within the Indian subcontient. However, Afghan kebab menu is complately different, as seen on any of the menu here. Similar to Uzbek or Tajik kebabs. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 19:12, 6 January 2019 (UTC))
Kebab dishes are common in South Asia. That doesn't mean they are all the same. Neither Wikipedia's maps of the Indian subcontinent nor Central Asia include Afghanistan. I don't see how the change improves the article. --IamNotU (talk) 19:29, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Agreed, the list is not about varieties of kebabs, it's about the regions in the world where the dish is popular. Afghanistan is one of these regions and as such, should clearly appear in the list. Best regards.---Wikaviani (talk) (contribs) 21:16, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Article image

Can you make suggestions for other photos? It should not be a clear, high quality photo and should not be any national kebab for a general article like this one where there are hundreds of such possibilities. Kebabs are basically, with minor variations in spicing, so calling this "American kebab" shows a ignorance. Kebab on rounded skewers like this is common in many countries and more importantly it is a good quality photo, not seeking to push any national POV. Shofet tsaddiq (talk) 17:24, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

The photo's description said it was from Kansas USA, and it's a very typical style of shish kebab in America. I hope this article will show the many varieties of kebab, not only the Western cliché ideas. The new photo you replaced it with is much better, thanks. It's not a national POV to show a photo of a Persian kebab, since it's very important in the history of kebab dishes. But I think your new photo now is better. --IamNotU (talk) 18:44, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
I am glad we have reached agreement on new picture. Shish style kebab could be made in Israel, Turkey, Bosnia, Austria etc, not only America, but when I think about it, Wikipedia picture should not reinforce popular misconception of cultural stereotypes, so I choose different but still very common style of kebab that exists in every cuisine from Pakistan and India to Turkey (Traditional Eastern European form a bit more like a grilled sausage style, but by now it has entered also the European cuisines).Shofet tsaddiq (talk) 19:19, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Bhaditraka

An edit (Special:Diff/881504192/881690943) mentioning a dish called "Bhaditraka", has been reverted. There were several problems with the edit. I would still be interested in discussing whether and/or how this information could be included in the article. The edit added the following:

twelfth century south indian cookbook from [[Karnataka|Kanataka]], [[Manasollasa]], mentions a dish called Bhaditraka which was kabab of today, in which pieces of meat were bored, stuffed with spices, roasted on spits, and then spiced again.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Indian Food Tradition A Historical Companion Achaya K. T.|last=nindi punj|first=|publisher=|year=|isbn=|location=|pages=90|language=English}}</ref>

I'm always interested to see references to older texts such as the Manasollasa. However, there are some problems with the currently proposed edit. The first is that it requires editing for proper English. But the bigger problem is saying that bhaditraka is/was the "kebab of today", without further explanation. This article's "History" section already makes it clear that cooking meat on a skewer or stick goes back to prehistoric and even pre-human times. It mentions, for example, Minoan civilization, and so it would not necessarily be wrong to also mention ancient precursors in South Asia. But it is not correct to name all these ancient ways of cooking meat "kebab". The article also attempts to convey that "kebab", that is, dishes called by the name "kebab", or clearly related to it, are much more than simply "meat on a skewer". The cited book's equating of bhaditraka with kebab of today can only be seen, I think, as a kind of metaphor. For that reason, it is not strictly speaking correct to call bhaditraka a kebab, nor to list it under the "National varieties" section. --IamNotU (talk) 06:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Kebab dishes originated in the medieval kitchens of Persia and Turkey.[3] They were generally made with smaller chunks or slices of meat, or ground meat, often cooked on skewers over a fire. This cooking method has a long history in the region, where it would be practical in cities where small cuts of meat were available in butchers' shops, and where fuel for cooking was relatively scarce, compared to Europe, where extensive forests enabled farmers to roast large cuts of meat whole.[1] The word kebab, most likely of Arabic origin

The history section doesnt make any clear distinction of what distinguishes a kabab from what is already mentioned in the RS i quoted, the word Kabab is of arabic origin and yet origins of kabab itself is from persia and turkey. from the definition of kabab itself Bhaditraka is a kabab, if you have objections, then you can publish your own book stating what makes a kabab special which doesnt qualify this dish to be not a kabab, and get peer reviewed. From the definition of kabab, it is just pieces of skewered meat cooked on a fire, even marination is not mentioned. Kabab word is of arabic origin so the dish must be of arab prigin as well, but its specifically mentioned that only the name is arabic, the dish is persian in origin which implies that the dish already existed before being renamed kabab, so it appears kababs infact are a generic term for skewered meat and all those skewered meats under islamic/arabic sphere of influence were renamed kababs.60.52.50.71 (talk) 07:16, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment. As noted in the lead and history sections, kebab does not mean "meat on a stick". This idea is contradicted by the many examples of kebabs that are stews, meatballs, or baked meat dishes. Even if you take simplistic English dictionary definitions (that typically refer to shish kebab), while many kebab dishes are indeed cooked on skewers, it doesn't follow that every dish cooked on a skewer is a kebab. For example, anticuchos are not kebabs, even though some English speakers may superficially refer to them that way, along with fruit kebabs, and many skewered foods that resemble shish kebab. This is explained in § Kebab in Western culture, and these types of dishes are not discussed in this article.
More reliable sources, such as those written by food historians, covering the subject in depth, invariably discuss kebab as being not one particular dish, but a name referring to a range of meat-based cuisine that developed mainly in the medieval Middle East. It is acknowledged that the custom of roasting chunks of meat on a stick has an ancient history in the region before this time. However, it has been the consensus so far that, as a general rule of thumb, the subject of this article is demarcated as various dishes that are named kebab, or that are clearly derived from such. Descriptions of dishes that may have been precursors to this, such as the ancient Greek preparations, are mentioned in the History section. Just as we don't say anything like "kebab is originally Greek", there will almost certainly not be a statement like "kebab originated in India", as this would be considered a fringe theory that is not widely supported by scholarship in the field. Unless some direct connection to kebab cuisine as described above can be shown, it's not accurate to describe bhaditraka as a type of kebab, nor to include it in the "National varieties" of kebab section, any more so than it would be to include anticucho or Japanese kushikatsu.
The origin of the English word kebab is described as coming into the English language through contact with Arabic, and partly through Urdu, Persian and Turkish. That does not mean it is originally Arabic. The prevailing theory traces it back to origins in Aramaic and Akkadian, and earlier. There has been debate about whether it entered Persian through Arabic, or directly from an earlier Semitic root, and for example Gil Marks has said that it entered Arabic from Persian and not vice-versa. This had been discussed in earlier revisions of the article, but was removed for various reasons (that I don't completly agree with). In any case, it is an old word in several languages, appearing for example in the Babylonian Talmud, which later became applied to and associated with the style of meat cooking that arose in the medieval Middle East. --IamNotU (talk) 15:01, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
if you have RS to back up your claim that Bhaditraka is not a kabab, please feel free to do so, i have again reverted your revert, because you are deliberately trying to remove RS, your personal opinions dont matter, you can bring RS stating that Bhaditraka is not a kabab and you can add that argument in the article, i wont edit that out, thanks. 60.52.50.71 (talk) 15:18, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
The source is already given in the article, which states and discusses in detail that kebab originated in medieval Persia and Turkey.[1] The source you have given, which says merely "Bhaditraka was the kabab of today", is best interpreted as meaning "was similar to the kebab of today", rather than a authoritative statement that it is considered in fact a kebab. It cannot be used to override the above source, or many others that define kebab as a cuisine of Middle Eastern origin. Please undo your revert, and stop edit warring while discussion is taking place. --IamNotU (talk) 15:44, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Bhaditraka doesnt have the name bhaditraka kabab so i dont think that it tries to lay claim on the origin of kabab away from the middle east, the author is drawing parallels between this dish and the indian kababs of today and states that essentially bhaditraka was the indian kabab of today, i dont think that author tries to challenge that bhaditraka was the first kabab or the kababs have origins in this dish, author is just trying to equate indian kabab cuisine with the pre islamic ones, and wants to convey that indians knew kababs before their dishes were renamed kababs with some outside cuisine influences. regards 60.52.50.71 (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
i think now you since crossed two reverts are using multiple accounts to revert my changes, but i wont stoop to your level and use fake accounts/IPs to do that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.137.72.188 (talk) 20:33, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
175.137.72.188, I'm assuming you're the same person as 60.52.50.71? Are you talking to me? Well I'm the only one here... I can assure you that the other editors are their own persons, as you can easily see by comparing our edit histories, and that they have their own reasons for reverting you - Sumanuil and Wikaviani, perhaps you could confirm that I am not U? So if you have a problem with their edits, please take it up with them. Sock puppetry is a serious offence on Wikipedia, and the proper procedure if you have evidence of it is to file a report at WP:SPI, since it is easily proven by a "checkuser". Unfounded accusations on talk pages are considered uncivil. Unless you intend to file a report, then as a show of good faith, I ask that you strike out your comment, as explained in Wikipedia's policy on civility. Thanks.
I'm a little busy at the moment, but I will answer your other comment soon - I would like to do a little more reading first. As I mentioned at the beginning, I think the citation of Achaya's book you contributed is valuable and interesting, and I hope we can include it in the article, otherwise I would not have started this discussion. But there are some questions to be answered first, which may take a little time. Please keep in mind there is no rush to change the article. I'm personally interested in learning and talking about the history of kebab, and I don't think I have very fixed ideas about it, other than that any information presented in the article should be verifiable in multiple high-quality published sources. I hope we can have a pleasant and relaxed conversation about the subject. However, if you feel for some reason that I am not being fair and neutral, you are free to pursue one of the resolution options given at WP:DISPUTE. --IamNotU (talk) 01:59, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

I've been called a lot of nasty things in my time here, but 'sockpuppet' is a new one. Really?Sumanuil (talk) 02:07, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm neither IamNotU nor Sumanuil. IP user, i would suggest you to desist from this kind of baseless accusations. You're free to file a SPI if you really think that we are the same person ...---Wikaviani (talk) (contribs) 04:39, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
whatever mate, multiple accounts or not, one thing is certain that you have used other accounts to revert my edits which are sourced from RS without them being in the discussion you have failed to convince me why you are removing my RS, you can edit the content if you want but you are outrightly removing my RS and you dont find any reason to revert them, anyone can do that, but let just rest this debate, i dont want to waste a lot of time on this pathetic debate special on kababs and convince few middle eastern/arab/persian egos. regards 175.137.72.188 (talk) 09:35, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
This IP has been trolling a number of West- and Central Asian food related pages in which he is promoting a India-nationalist-, or Hindu-nationalist POV by selectively quoting from a single source, KT Achaya's Indian Food: A Historical Companion, OUP India, 1994, or by obscurely quoting from it. I say India-nationalist- or Hindu-nationalist because the goal of these edits is often to claim Indian, especially pre-Islamic Hindu provenance for food dishes that are commonly associated with regions outside of India, especially ones in the Islamic world. Please see my list of sources: Talk:Pilaf#Fowler&fowler's_sources, especially its source 8, which clearly gives the lie to this use of Achaya, and explicity mentions Kebabs as well. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:19, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
butt hurt desparate west asian/ central asian?, regards. 175.137.72.188 (talk) 11:18, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Says the IP, "butt hurt desparate (sic) west asian/central asian?" says he tauntingly about someone who has written a large number of India-related pages, including all the major sections of the FA India. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:40, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
you sir have an agenda, and that agenda is biased against india, what ever you are contributing in indian articles, which i have no inkling of, must be westernising, or europeanising indian topics, i have encountered such users before, which is more damaging than contributing so hardly can be appreciated, your rant of indian/hindu nationalist, both of which im not/neither hindu/nor an indian/ just exhibits the very nature of those contributions, i dont want to be judgemental, but thats what appears to be, regards. 175.137.72.188 (talk) 13:05, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
I see little issue in mentioning it in the India section, but grammar and pose needs to be improved. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 12:04, 12 February 2019 (UTC))
I've mentioned it in the History section, and done some more editing there. There's no issue to mention that the description of skewered meat in the Manasollasa (and the spit-cooked meat described in the Mahabharata), predates the Mughal Empire, just as we already mention the descriptions of ancient Greece in the History section. But the source doesn't support the idea that the kebab of today in India is an indigenous dish from ancient India, that was only renamed "kebab", rather than the modern kebab being introduced through the Mughal influence, which is broadly supported by scholarship in the field. I've also tried to clarify further the distinction between the two senses of the English term kebab, one being almost any kind of small pieces of food on a skewer resembling shish kebab (in which sense Bhaditraka could technically be described as a kebab), and the other sense that is emphasized in this article, which is a broad range of skewered and non-skewered meat dishes of medieval Middle Eastern origin. --IamNotU (talk) 19:04, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
you are repeatedly inserting ancient greece here, which has no relevance, do greek manuscripts share food recipes and one resembling kabab?, for bhaditraka/bhadritakas we have recorded recipes which scholars have argued is essentially a kabab, it would be convincing if you present sources which discuss bhaditrakas as not being a kabab but what i see here, you making only an assumption that bhaditrakas/bhadritakas are not kebabs just because we have no western/european sources discussing them.

But the source doesn't support the idea that the kebab of today in India is an indigenous dish from ancient India, that was only renamed "kebab", rather than the modern kebab being introduced through the Mughal influence, which is broadly supported by scholarship in the field.

here is another source which verifies bhadritakas/bhaditrakas as being nothing but a genuine kabab

The Manasollasa (12th century) has a recipe for a dish in which pieces of meat were marinated in fruit juice, threaded on to skewers and then cooked on hot coals. Though the Manasollasa is a South Indian text, today’s North Indians will have no difficulty in recognising these dishes as kebabs. hindustantimes

, those western sources who have declared kababs of india as mughal influence, have they discussed ancient indian pre islamic recipes and how they may bear relate to modern indian cuisine? if they have not, then its really an assumption, isnt it?, western sources are biased, and i have a good evidence that assumption and premeditated generalizations being made without properly researching preislamic indian cuisine references/sources.

If Hinduism has given a high spiritual content to the meal, it has paid little attention to the art of cooking. Boiled cereals and griddle bread, stewed vegetables, and pulses had been the usual diet since the beginning of Indian civilization.

Roger, Delphine (2000), "The Middle East and South Asia (in Chapter: History and Culture of Food and Drink in Asia)", in Kiple, Kenneth F.; Ornelas, Kriemhild Coneè (eds) (ed.), The Cambridge World History of Food, vol. Volume 2, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1140–1150, ISBN 978-0-521-40215-6 {{citation}}: |editor= has generic name (help); |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)175.137.72.188 (talk) 04:13, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

@IamNotU: I commend your ability to stay calm and focused. The Indian-POV has only one source. It is K. T. Achaya's Indian Food: A Historical Companion. As I say in my posts on Talk:Pilaf#The_problem_with_Achaya, this source is problematic. The LA Times review has the same concerns. All references using it should be prefaced with: "Author K. T. Achaya has claimed, " or "According to author K. T. Achaya ..." The Mahabharata is mythology. Its own page Mahabharata says it is epic poetry and a legendary narrative. It they ate meat, and if they had fire, they likely had a spit, but to claim it was kebab is a stretch. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:21, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Marks, Gil (2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6.

history of kabab is non neutral eurocentred and west asian centered based on one sided european scholarship

the history of kabab is non neutral, eurocentred/ persian/ west asian centered and wants to claim that kababs originated in the middle east and influenced the kabab dishes in the rest of the world.

the non european view is not accepted for instance by indian scholarship which argues that kababs were indeed present in indian subcontinent before islamic invasion and many dishes like bihari kabab, pasande, gola kabab, shaami kabab, hence all kinds of kababs skewered or made into patties, deep fried or roasted were can trace their origins in india before the arab/persian/turk invasions and has nothing to do with middle eastern influence.

The biased european scholarship on culinary topics fail to cite any indian pre islamic source for discussion on indian cuisine and is heavily biased in favour of western asian/ european agenda and doesnt acknowledge indian pre islamic/ post non islamic scholarship at all and only cites persian non sanskrit/prakrit cookbooks.

the sactarian and bias tendencies of the european scholars cited can be easily discerned in the following quote

If Hinduism has given a high spiritual content to the meal, it has paid little attention to the art of cooking. Boiled cereals and griddle bread, stewed vegetables, and pulses had been the usual diet since the beginning of Indian civilization. Roger, Delphine (2000), "The Middle East and South Asia (in Chapter: History and Culture of Food and Drink in Asia)", in Kiple, Kenneth F.; Ornelas, Kriemhild Coneè (eds) (ed.), The Cambridge World History of Food, vol. Volume 2, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1140–1150, ISBN 978-0-521-40215-6 {{citation}}: |editor= has generic name (help); |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

Indian food historian Colleen Taylor Sen in her book Feasts And Fasts: The History of Food in India explains that while gastronomical issues were given great importance in ancient Indian texts, little attention was paid to the culinary aspect. Most of the references to food in these ancient texts pertained to what should or should not be eaten, in what season, and so on. They gave little or no importance to the palate.

175.137.72.188.

same gibberish has been repeated by western food historians/ over and over again while refusing to entertain indian scholarly sources on food.

I have read Alan Davidson's book The Oxford Companion to Food, and not a single indian scholarly citations are made for indian dishes, and are blatantly declared persian/ middle eastern, this one sided european scholarship has been conveniently used by european editors here an an excuse for manipulating the articles in their ethnic favour. K. T. Achaya's book Indian Food Tradition A Historical Companion, mentions a lot of ancient indian scholarly references to the pre islamic food present in ancient india and has sourced all the information from past scholarships including western ones and ancient indian historic manuscripts like, the western culinary scholarship has only tried to impose its eurocentred propaganda without citing any credible evidences.

non european users are requested to completely avoid this bogus history of kababs section and the article as a whole which rather aims to serve european/west asian readers. 175.137.72.188 (talk) 06:18, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think Davidson is a perfect source. They will try to give everyone something, some dishes are declared Greek or whatever. We can't change the political behind the scenes decisions at Oxford. But, why is the origin of the dish important? Most scholars believe there are multiple origins. Most likely the route of transfer was not only east to west, but back and forth exchanges of culture over centuries...but to answer the question where does cooking meat on a spit originate, what does it gain to spend energy on this? We have only etymologies, not origins, and readers do not come to food articles for etymology lessons.Shofet tsaddiq (talk) 07:10, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
i agree with your views, i dont think that kabab origin can be pinpointed to a specific region, this is what i originally argued, i only tried to change the indian section of kabab here which european users dont agree with, i have still not got a viable answer, what makes the middle eastern kabab, a kebab, and the rest of non middle eastern kabab like dishes labelled as brought by invaders, and then they cite european sources which are presumptuous as in the text i highlighted earlier. middle eastern kabab is from middle east and the kababs in india are from india, but they want to claim foreign dishes as middle eastern, they have issues calling an indian dish from pre invasion times as kababs just because the recipe is given roughly less than hundred years prior to invasion. 175.137.72.188 (talk) 07:38, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
I see only this problem in the section:
  • "This cuisine has spread around the world, in parallel with Muslim influence"
  • "The 12th-century Manasollasa text also describes this technique being used with spiced meat in South India predating the Mughal Empire that introduced Central Asian kebabs to the Indian subcontinent."
These two statements seem to be contradicting one another. One is sourced to Davidson, the second to another Oxford book.Shofet tsaddiq (talk) 08:18, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Shofet tsaddiq, could you tell me why you see that as a contradiction? The second sentence is talking about the technique of cooking small pieces of meat on a skewer, known since prehistoric (even pre-human) times. The first sentence is talking about a particular cuisine of many different meat dishes, including stews, meatballs, etc., given the name "kebab" in the medieval Middle East, and spread through the Islamic empires.
Anyway, I've made a change to the sentence, does it improve it? --IamNotU (talk) 14:26, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
I see what now what is meant. The third paragraph defines kebab as "mainly associated with a diversity of meat dishes that originated in the medieval kitchens of Persia and Turkey". The second paragraph says "The 12th-century Manasollasa text also describes this cooking technique being used with spiced meat in South India, predating the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire that introduced the various Persian- and Turkish-influenced meat dishes named kebab to the Indian subcontinent." These are out of order, with the second paragraph referring to ideas that are not introduced until the third paragraph.Shofet tsaddiq (talk) 16:04, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
"Predating" is synthesis, for none of the sources make that claim. The references to Kebabs after the Muslim invasion of India are numerous and ubiquitous, both medieval and modern. Manasollasa, on the other hand, is a single source; there is no other medieval Hindu source making that claim. It is not well-established common fare; rather, it is royal fare, indeed it appears in Achaya's chapter called Royal Fare. It is dated to 1153 AD, long after the Muslim appearance on the Indian subcontinent: permanently in the 8th century in Sindh, continually in the 10th, 11th, and early 12th centuries across northwestern- and western India, and only a few decades before the establishment of the Delhi sultanate. Cultural historian Ashis Nandy, in Nandy, Ashis (2004), "The Changing Popular Culture of Indian Food: Preliminary Notes", South Asia Research, 24 (1): 9–19, doi:10.1177/0262728004042760, ISSN 0262-7280, says explicitly:

" (p. 11) All around India one finds preparations that came originally from outside South Asia. Kebabs came from West and Central Asia and underwent radical metamorphosis in the hot and dusty plains of India. So did biryani and pulao, two rice preparations, usually with meat. Without them, ceremonial dining in many parts of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh is incomplete. Even the term pulao or pilav seems to have come from Arabic and Persian. It is true that in Sanskrit — in the Yajnavalkya Smriti — and in old Tamil the term pulao occurs (Achaya, 1998b: 11), but it is also true that biryani and pulao today carry mainly the stamp of the Mughal times and its Persianized high culture.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:48, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Other sources have said the same, such as: Roger, Delphine (2000), "The Middle East and South Asia (in Chapter: History and Culture of Food and Drink in Asia)", in Kiple, Kenneth F.; Ornelas, Kriemhild Coneè (eds) (ed.), The Cambridge World History of Food, vol. Volume 2, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1140–1150, ISBN 978-0-521-40215-6 {{citation}}: |editor= has generic name (help); |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link), which says:

"(p. 1151) As we have noted, Islam also strongly imposed itself on the cookery of the subcontinent for religious, as well as for purely gastronomic, reasons. Although a late cultural and religious arrival, Islam came to India via many channels. Arab traders, Afghan and Turk soldiers, along with Iranian administrators, all settled down there and made converts to their religion, as well as to portions of their culture. If Hinduism has given a high spiritual content to the meal, it has paid little attention to the art of cooking. Boiled cereals and griddle bread, stewed vegetables, and pulses had been the usual diet since the beginning of Indian civilization. Islam gave to Indian cookery its masterpiece dishes from the Middle East. These include pilau (from Iranian pollo and Turkish pilaf), samossa (Turkish sambussak), shir kurma (dates and milk), kebabs, sherbet, stuffed vegetables, oven bread, and confections (halvah). Such dishes became so well acclimated in India that vegetarian versions of them were elaborated. It is this cross-cultural art that is now acclaimed all around the world."

We can't give equal billing to an obscure reference in Achaya and a commonly cited fact of food exchange during and after the Muslims invasions of South Asia. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:09, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

How many people who have contributed to this section are aware of the information at WP:WEIGHT? - Sitush (talk) 18:05, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Twelve. Why do you ask? --IamNotU (talk)
(Interruption) I think Sitush is telling us to pay attention to due and undue weight when editing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:57, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
I know, I was just kidding! It's a good point, so thanks Sitush, for your comment, for reverting the revert of my self-revert, and for pointing out the relevant discussion at Talk:Pilaf § The problem with Achaya. --IamNotU (talk) 00:16, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
Shofet tsaddiq and Fowler&fowler, thanks, you both make good points, so I took that sentence out for now. I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I'm wondering now if that whole first part of the History section puts too much emphasis on the meat-on-a-stick idea. The reason it's that way is that the article used to define kebab the way most dictionaries do, e.g. "a dish of pieces of meat, fish, or vegetables roasted or grilled on a skewer or spit", and also the History used to be a long section of nothing but every mention in Greek history related to meat-on-a-stick, I think because someone was trying to prove that souvlaki is Greek and not Turkish... I tried to reduce the Greek stuff and broaden it to say practically all cultures cooked meat-on-a-stick, probably even Neanderthals. So I'm kind of happy to have references to more old texts that talk about cooking meat-on-a-stick, besides the Greek ones. At the same I've tried to get across the idea, particularly from reading Gil Marks, that kebab isn't generically meat-on-a-stick anyway, but a whole range of not-always-on-a-stick meat dishes specific to medieval Islamic cusine. It feels like both senses of the word need to be addressed, but it's hard to find the right balance. This article attracts a lot of edit-warring over the idea of the national origin of kebabs, so anything that helps avoid that is welcome. --IamNotU (talk) 23:45, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Thousands separators

Should not thousands separators be written according to ISO-Standard? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.64.113.107 (talk) 00:01, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

No, they should not. According to Wikipedia's Manual of Style, both comma separators and narrow gap separators are acceptable optional styles.
The ISO style is possibly more suitable (though not required) in science or technical articles, but this is not one. It has the drawback that it doesn't work well with screen readers. The comma style is still more commonly used, and likely less surprising to most Wikipedia readers. It is also used for example by Encyclopedia Britannica.
While it's possible to change an article from one optional style to another, if there is good reason to do so, generally talk page consensus should be sought first, so thanks for bringing it up here. However, at the moment I don't see any compelling reason to change the existing style.
I noticed you've asked the same thing in several other articles over the past couple of years. If you feel the current general practice should be changed, the best place to address it is on the talk page of MOS:DIGITS, as was suggested to you last time in September. I hope that helps answer your question. --IamNotU (talk) 02:47, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Usage in English etc., second paragraph

Halbared, you've twice now removed "outside of North America" from the second paragraph. That leaves a statement that isn't accurate and doesn't reflect the sources or reality. In the UK, Ireland, Australia, etc., people usually call a sandwich/wrap with meat from a vertical rotisserie literally "a kebab", e.g. "I'd like a kebab please", or "we stopped for a kebab after the pub". This usage is essentially unknown in the US and Canada, where it was popularized mainly by Greek immigrants. There, the common name overwhelmingly is "a gyro", (sometimes "a donair" in Canada) not "a kebab". This is common knowledge and easily verified, I added a citation and there are many more. Please stop changing it to imply that in North America a common name for gyros/shawarma/doner is "a kebab".

The first source, "Language and Food", says:

Kabab/Kebab, most likely a word of Arabic derivation, is now ubiquitous, not only in the Middle East but worldwide, to be found on every high street in Western cities. The ‘default’ kebab is cubes of meat on a skewer, the shish kebab or shashlik of international cookery. [...discussion of its presence in West and South Asia...] The ubiquitous kebab of our time is döner, rotating vertical skewers of which are to be found in profusion in every city in the Middle East and Europe. Döner is a Turkish word indicating turning or rotation. In the Levant (and in Arab and Israeli dispensers inEurope)it is called shwarma...[1]

First, note that Zubaida does not say that the doner is more ubiquitous than the cubes of meat on a skewer type, which in a global context it certainly is not. In the first sentence, ubiquitous refers to all types of kebab. The shish kebab type had spread worldwide much earlier, measured in centuries; it's not until "our time" (i.e. since the 1970s) that the doner has also become ubiquitous. Secondly, the sentence describing doner as ubiquitous goes on to say "in every city in the Middle East and Europe" - i.e., outside of North America. He doesn't mention the situation there, nor gyros.

In the second source, Marks says:

Kebab denotes an array of Middle Eastern grilled or broiled meat dishes; in America, it typically refers to shish kebab, while in Europe it more commonly indicates doner kebab (shawarma)...[2]

That's a very clear statement. It also doesn't mention gyros, but that's the reason. It does support the idea that - outside of North America - these days arguably "a kebab" more often means a doner than a shish kebab. However, he refers to Europe in general, including e.g. Austria, so if we want to make a statement that In most English-speaking countries, as the paragraph begins, the sense of "a kebab" as doner is demonstrably more common than the sense as shish kebab, we would need a better source. I think it's not really worth the effort, and is not necessary to quantify which sense is more common, at least not in the lead; the current wording suffices. --IamNotU (talk) 13:32, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I may have been misunderstanding the first sentence. I was reading the anglosphere as being North America (and US centric), whereas now it scans OK to me as both versions of the kebab are in the anglophere.Halbared (talk) 17:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for replying... --IamNotU (talk) 21:16, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Zubaida, Sami (2010). "Vocabularies of Middle Eastern Food". In Hosking, Richard (ed.). Food and Language: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking 2009. Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Prospect Books. p. 386. ISBN 978-1-903018-79-8 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ Marks, Gil (2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6.
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