Chorbaorshorba (from Ottoman Turkish چوربا çorbaorPersian شوربا šōrbā) is a broad class of stews or rich soups found in national cuisines across the Middle East, Maghreb, Iran, Turkey, Southeast Europe, Central Asia, East Africa and South Asia. It is often prepared with added ingredients but served alone[1] as a broth or with bread.[2]
Bulgarian bean chorba with tomatoes and red peppers.
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| Alternative names | Ciorbă, shurbah, shorwa, čorba, çorba |
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| Type | Souporstew |
| Region or state | Balkans, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Africa, Arabia |
| Main ingredients | Water, meat, beans، vegetables and legumes |
The word chorba in English and in many Balkan languages is a loan from the Ottoman Turkish چوربا çorba, which itself is a loan from Persian شوربا šōrbā. The spelling shorba could be a direct loan into English from Persian or through a Central or South Asian intermediary.
The word is ultimately a compound of شور šōr meaning 'salty, brackish' and با bā meaning 'stew, gruel, spoon-meat'.[3] The former is from Parthian 𐫢𐫇𐫡 šōr meaning 'salty', and the latter from Middle Persian *-bāg meaning 'gruel, spoon-meat'.
The etymology can be definitively tied to Persian through the cognate شورباج šōrabāj; in modern Persian, while شوربا šōrbā evolved to mean 'broth, stew', شورباج šōrabāj simply means 'soup'.[4] It is typical for Middle Persian word-final 𐭪 g to either change to ج j or to be dropped altogether in Modern Persian.
The dialectal Arabic word شوربة šūrbaorشربة šurba is also a loan from Persian and cannot be etymologically tied to شرب šariba meaning 'to drink'. That said, it is highly likely that phono-semantic matching occurred during the loaning of the word into Arabic, which would explain the orthographical difference.
Chorba is also called shorba (Amharic: ሾርባ), sho'rva (Uzbek: шўрва), shorwa (Pashto: شوروا), chorba (Bulgarian: чорба), čorba (Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: чорба), shurbad (Somali), ciorbă (Romanian), shurpa (Russian: шурпа), shorpa (Uyghur: شورپا / шорпа), çorba (Turkish), shorpo (Kyrgyz: шорпо) and sorpa (Kazakh: сорпа).[citation needed] In the Indian subcontinent, the term shorbāinUrdu-Hindi (شوربہ / शोरबा) simply means gravy. It is a Mughlai dish and it has vegetarian forms such as tomato shorba.
Shorwa is a traditional Afghan dish which is a simple dish which is usually mixed with bread on the dastarkhān.[5] It is a long process and a pressure-cooker is usually used, as it reduces the process to 2 hours. The main ingredients for shorwa are potatoes, beans and meat.[6] It is commonly served with Afghan bread.[7]
Ciorbă, as called in Moldova and Romania, consists of various vegetables, meat and herbs. Borș is a sour soup that is used in the Moldova region.[8] It is served hot to stimulate digestion and be effective against colds.[9] There are several types of this dish, such as ciorbă de perișoare, leek soup, Romanian borscht, and borș de burechiușe.
