Shish kebab
Shish kebab is a popular meal of skewered and grilled cubes of meat. It can be found in Mediterranean cuisine and is similar to or synonymous with a dish called shashlik, which is found in the Caucasus region. It is one of the many types of kebab, a range of meat dishes originating in the Middle East. In English, the word "kebab" alone often refers to shish kebab, though outside of North America, "kebab" may also mean doner kebab. It is traditionally made of lamb but there are also versions with various kinds of meat, poultry, or fish . In Turkey, shish kebab and the vegetables served with it are grilled separately, normally not on the same skewer. Etymology. "Shish kebab" is an English rendering of (sword or skewer) and "kebap" (roasted meat dish), that dates from around the beginning of the 20th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its earliest known publication in English is in the 1914 novel "Our Mr. Wrenn" by Sinclair Lewis. The word "kebab" alone was already present in English by the late 17th century, from the ("kabāb"), partly through Urdu, Persian and Turkish. Etymologist Sevan Nişanyan states that the word has the  equivalent meaning of "frying/burning" with "kabābu" in the old Akkadian language, and "kbabā/כבבא" in Aramaic. The oldest known example of , probably originally meaning a pointed stick, comes from the 11th-century "Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk", attributed to Mahmud of Kashgar.