Kebab: A Sandwich?

Filed in archive People Who Cook , Recipes , Reviews , Web Resources on September 21, 2006

Yes it is, if it is Iraqi kebab, that's what I found out from Nawal Nasrallah, the author of Delights from the Garden of Eden, an Iraqi Cookbook.

Admittedly, I am very new to this area's cuisine. I have not yet made my way up from the Mediterranean, my current interest. However, it is so well-written in terms of history and other background information that one of these days, I might just get myself to cook from it.

Anyway, here is an excerpt from an article Ms. Nasrallah wrote for the Book of Rai forum:

If ever you order kebab at an Iraqi restaurant, brace yourself for a surprise. Instead of the familiar marinated skewered lamb cubes, you will get laffat kebab (kebab wrapped in bread). It consists of an elongated ground meat patty, seasoned with salt and pepper; grilled on a brazier till succulent, speckled with tangy red sumac, and garnished with thinly sliced onion, chopped parsley, tomatoes and probably pickles. The whole mixture would be rolled in Flatbread or stuffed in diamond-shaped bread called samoun.

More -

Turkey is generally credited with originating the signature dish as well as its name. Shish is the flat skewer or brochette, kebab the roast meat. It probably spread westward during the long rule of the Ottoman Empire (sixteenth century until the end of World War One). There is evidence, however, that the dish and its name are much older. Recently, while doing research for my book on the history of the Iraqi cuisine I discovered that the word kebab is of ancient Mesopotamian origin. In Akkadian, the language of the Babylonian and Assyrian inhabitants of Iraq, written on cuneiform tablets, kababu meant "burn" or "char."

It makes for fascinating reading. Go to the Iraqi Cookbook website for more of it.

[photo credit goes to Ms. Nasrallah]