skewer

Metal skewers are typically stainless steel rods with a pointed tip on one end and a grip of some kind on the other end for ease of removing the food. Non-metallic skewers are often made from bamboo, as well as hardwoods such as birch, beech,{{cite web|access-date=2019-12-15|title=Producer of sticks for skewers and popsicle - Zdzisław Fyda|url=https://patyczki-ns.pl/en/|website=patyczki-ns.pl}} or other suitable wood. Prior to grilling, wooden skewers may be soaked in water to avoid burning. A related device is the rotisserie or spit, a large rod that rotates meat while it cooks.

File:Akrotiri terracotta firedogs with zoomorphic finials.jpg firedogs, 17th century BCE]]

At the 300,000-year-old Schöningen site in Germany. A stick with a burnt tip was suggested to have been used to cook meat over a fire,{{Cite book |title=Archaeology of food : an encyclopedia |last=Gaudzinski-Windheuser |first=Sabine |isbn=9780759123663 |editor-last=Metheny |editor-first=Karen Bescherer |location=Lanham |at=section Paleolithic Diet |oclc=898158291 |editor-last2=Beaudry |editor-first2=Mary C.|date = 2015-08-07}} though later scholars have questioned this interpretation.{{Cite journal |last1=Aranguren |first1=Biancamaria |last2=Revedin |first2=Anna |last3=Amico |first3=Nicola |last4=Cavulli |first4=Fabio |last5=Giachi |first5=Gianna |last6=Grimaldi |first6=Stefano |last7=Macchioni |first7=Nicola |last8=Santaniello |first8=Fabio |date=2018-02-27 |title=Wooden tools and fire technology in the early Neanderthal site of Poggetti Vecchi (Italy) |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |language=en |volume=115 |issue=9 |pages=2054–2059 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1716068115 |doi-access=free |issn=0027-8424 |pmc=5834685 |pmid=29432163|bibcode=2018PNAS..115.2054A }} Excavations of the Minoan settlement of Akrotiri unearthed stone "fire dogs" used before the 17th century BCE. In these supports there are pairs of indentations that may have been used for holding skewers.[http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=2&ct=1&artId=382454&dt=04/02/2011#ixzz1D5R96Hvx To Vima (in Greek)], 6-2-2011 (picture 2 of 7) Homer in Iliad (1.465) mentions pieces of meat roasted on spits ({{Lang|grc|ὀβελός}}, {{Lang|grc-latn|obelós}}). In Classical Greece, a small spit or skewer was known as {{Lang|grc|ὀβελίσκος}} ({{Lang|grc-latn|obeliskos}}),[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2371909 ὀβελίσκος], Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus, dim. of ὀβελός (obelos), [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2371912 ὀβελός]. and Aristophanes mentions such skewers being used to roast thrushes.Acharnians [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Aristoph.+Ach.+1007&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0240 1007] The story is often told of medieval Middle Eastern soldiers - usually Turkish or Persian, depending on the storyteller – who cooked meat skewered on their swords.{{Cite magazine |date=1961 |title=FIRE DANCE—The Fascinating Story of Lamb Shish Kebab |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uZweAQAAMAAJ&q=persian+soldiers+swords+kebab |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=37 part 3 |page=346 |access-date=2018-03-02}}{{Cite book |title=Food around the world |last=Ridgwell |first=Jenny |date=1986 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780198327288 |location=Oxford |pages=45 |oclc=17199754}}

One of the most well-known skewered foods around the world is the shish kebab. The earliest literary evidence for the Turkish word {{lang|tk|şiş}} (shish) as a food utensil comes from the 11th-century {{Lang|tr|Diwan Lughat al-Turk}}, attributed to Mahmud of Kashgar. He defines shish as both a skewer and 'tool for arranging noodles' ({{Lang|tr|minzam tutmaj}}), though he is unique in this regard as all subsequent known historical references to shish define it as a skewer.{{Cite book| title = Food on the Move| publisher=Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery |date=1996 |chapter=The Horseback Kitchen of Central Asia |access-date = 2018-07-16| url = https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_uYqTiD7SbcQC| isbn=9780907325796 }}{{cite web|access-date=2018-07-16|title=Nişanyan Sözlük - şiş |trans-title=Nişanyan Dictionary - shish |language=tr |url=http://www.nisanyansozluk.com/?k=şiş|website=Nişanyan Sözlük}}

{{main|Kebab|List of kebabs}}

A large variety of dishes cooked on skewers are kebabs (meat dishes prevalent in Middle Eastern cuisine and the Muslim world), or derived from them. Examples include Turkish shish kebab, Iranian jujeh kabab, Chinese chuan, and Southeast Asian satay. However, kebab is not synonymous with "skewered food", and many kebab dishes such as chapli kebab are not cooked on skewers. On the other hand, English speakers may sometimes use the word kebab to refer to any food on a skewer.

Dishes, other than kebabs, prepared with skewers include American city chicken and corn dog, Brazilian churrasco, indigenous Peruvian anticucho, Indonesian satay, Italian arrosticini, Greek souvlaki, Japanese kushiyaki and kushikatsu, Korean jeok and kkochi, Nepali sekuwa, Portuguese espetada, Serbian ražnjići, Vietnamese nem nướng and chạo tôm, Chinese shaokao, and Malaysian-Singaporean Lok-lok.

Appetizers and hors d'oeuvres may often be skewered together with small sticks or toothpicks; the Spanish pincho is named after such a skewer.{{Cite book |title=The Basque table : passionate home cooking from Spain's most celebrated cuisine |last=Barrenechea |first=Teresa |date=1998 |publisher=Harvard Common Press |isbn=9781558325234 |location=Boston, Mass. |oclc=797821047}} Small, often decorative, skewers of glass, metal, wood or bamboo known as olive picks or cocktail sticks are used for garnishes on cocktails and other alcoholic beverages. Many types of snack food, such as candy apples, bananacue, ginanggang, elote, {{Lang|id|telur gulung}}, and tanghulu, are sold and served "on a stick" or skewer, especially at outdoor markets, fairs, and sidewalk or roadside stands around the world.{{Citation needed|date=July 2021}}

File:Chenjeh1.jpg|Chenjeh kebab in Iran

File:Seafood skewers.jpg|Seafood skewers sold in South Korea: mun-kkochi (giant octopus), sora-kkochi (horned turban), and jju-kkochi (webfoot octopus).

File:Skewered food at Shida Night Market in Taipei.jpg|Fish ball skewers at Shida Night Market in Taipei, Taiwan

File:Brochette de dinde sur une assiette pres de Jijel 1.JPG|Khebab from Algeria

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Category:Food preparation utensils

Category:Eating utensils