This uniquely prepared kebab has become, as years passed, a trademark of Erzurum where all the famous Usta,[nb 1] like Şakir Aktaş and Kemâl Koç, run restaurants. Each claiming to be descending from the exclusive inventors.
Note that while it is increasingly available in most Turkish cities, the Cağ kebabı is especially popular in Erzurum, whereas enjoying an ever-growing success in Istanbul and Ankara.
Ottoman travel books of the eighteenth century cite a kebab cooked on wood fire consisting of a horizontal stack of meat, known as『Cağ Kebabı』in the Eastern Turkish province of Erzurum, which is probably the earlier form of döner as known.[citation needed]
Now, the kebab is very famous in Erzurum, Istanbul and many other States in the EU.[2][3][4]
The Turkish word cağ (IPA:[ˈdʒaː]) borrowed from Armeno-Georgian.[5][6] It means "spit" or skewer.[7] Hence the name of the kebab that consists of meat impaled on a huge spit.
Slices of lamb and large quantities of tail fat are left to marinate in a mixture of basil, black pepper, salt and sliced onions for the length of a day. They are then impaled on the spit (Cağ), and stacked thickly. The spit is then locked and transferred to the fire, where there is a fairly complicated device that controls the cooking of the spit. This typically includes a mechanism for turning the meat, another one for raising and lowering it, and also dents on the side to move the stack towards the fire as it gets thinner after servings are repeatedly cut away.
The meat used for Cağ kebabı is exclusively lamb.[8]
Stacking the lamb slices on the cağ
Cağ kebabı being cut
Newly impaled meat cooking on the cağ
Cağ kebabı, served on a bico, or individual skewer
A restaurant in Ankara/Turkey that specializes in Cag Kebab (in Turkish "Cağ kebabı")
^"Usta" is a Turkish word, similar in its sense to the French word "chef" although its scope of use is wider, and it is a title, usually added after the first name, to denote a master of any craft or trade.
^Yerasimos, Marianna (2005). 500 Yıllık Osmanlı Mutfağı (500 Years of Ottoman Cuisine) (in Turkish). Istanbul: Boyut Kitapları Yayın Grubu. p. 307. ISBN975-23-0111-8.
^
Isin, Priscilla Mary (15. Mai 2018). Reichhaltiges Reich: Eine Geschichte der osmanischen Küche. Reaktion Bücher. ISBN 978-1-78023-939-2 – über Google Books.
^Marks, Gil (17. November 2010). Enzyklopädie des jüdischen Essens. HMH. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6 – über Google Books.
^Kiple, Kenneth F.; Ornelas, Kriemhild Coneè, Hrsg. (2000). Die Cambridge World History of Food, Band 2. Cambridge University Press. p. 1147. ISBN 9780521402156 – über Google Books. Bursa ist die Stadt, in der das weltberühmte geboren wurde Döner Kebab, Fleisch auf einem vertikal drehenden Spieß geröstet.
^"ճաղ". 25 September 2022. Retrieved 19 April 2023 – via Wiktionary.
