THE MELTING POT: SPECIAL COLUMN: Ethnic Street Foods: Part 3 – How Ethnic Foods Survived Through
Early Mobility – The Versatile Kebab
A popular cross-culture food cart
item which could be enjoyed by many immigrants (once carts had the facility to
cook and/or keep warm and chill foods) from different Asian and African countries
is the Kebab. (NOTE: a kebab is a dish of
pieces of beef, fish, chicken, goat, lamb and pork and/or vegetables roasted or
grilled on a skewer or spit originating in the Middle East, later adopted in
Central Asia and by the former Mongol and Ottoman Empires, before spreading
worldwide.)
From Turkey (where the kebab supposedly
originated) you have the Orman Kebabi (roasted lamb), Coban Kebabi (a
shepherd’s-style roast of meat), Hacci Osman Kebabi (Kebab on a revolving
spit), Koyun Kebabi (a whole lamb roasted in a covered pit) and Kefenli Kebabi (a
unique kind of roast meat cooked and wrapped in bread). And the lengthy list goes on.
According to a 2010 study the
following nationalities (population by first ancestry of those who reported) found
that 47.15 % of the population of Allegheny County (with German and Polish
leading) and 41.93 % of Fayette County (again, with the same leaders) said their
ancestors were from countries that were very familiar with eating kebabs so the
kebab was a viable alternative for the food cart that could keep them warm
and/or cook them.
As we in the US are generally familiar
with beef or lamb kebabs with onions and peppers or gyros, these are just the
most common and generic. There are hundreds
of kebab variations which include sauces, side dishes and more.
There are many that we might not be
familiar with such as Rajpooti
Soolah (from India which is wild boar,
deer or partridge barbecue kebabs made with a special "Kachari" or wild
melon sauce) OR Souvlaki (from Greece which consists of small pieces of meat, potatoes and
sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer. It can be served on the skewer or as
a pita sandwich with garnishes and sauces such as Tzatziki or on a dinner plate
with fried
potatoes) OR the Doner Kebab adaptation (from Malaysia which consists of meat after being cut from the spit, is pan-fried with onions and a hot sauce and then placed into a pita bread pocket before being
filled with condiments such as tomatoes, mayonnaise, onion, and lettuce) OR kebab (from Azerbaijan where the meat for the Tika Kabab, for
example, is prepared in onion and thyme gravy and wrapped in Lavash
which is a soft,
thin unleavened flatbread made in a special tandoor oven with sauces like pomegranate syrup and other condiments) OR a Testi
Kebab (from Central Anatolia
region of Turkey and
the Mid-Western Black Sea region consisting of a mixture of meat and vegetables
cooked in a clay pot or jug over fire. The pot is sealed with bread dough or
foil and is broken upon serving) OR Burrah Kebab (from South
Asia and is made of marinated goat meat and charcoal grilled) OR a Jujeh Kabab (from
ancient Persia which is now Iran consists of pieces of chicken first marinated in minced onion, lemon juice &
saffron and grilled over a fire and served with grilled tomato and pepper).
PUSHCART LINKS
For
recipes from 1700s to 1960s and modern day links, visit www.ThePAMeltingPot.com.
Christine Willard, a native of western Pennsylvania, researches and blogs about
the food unique to western Pennsylvania. She currently
resides in North Carolina.
