 Bulgarian bean chorba with tomatoes and red peppers. | |
| Alternative names | Ciorbă, shurbah, shorwa, čorba, çorba |
|---|---|
| Type | Soup orstew |
| Region or state | Algeria,Balkans,Central Europe,Eastern Europe,Southeast Europe,Central Asia,North Africa,Arabia |
| Main ingredients | Water,meat,beans،vegetables andlegumes |
Chorba, (/ˈtʃɔːrbə/CHOR-bə;Turkish:[tʃɔɾˈba])[a]shorwa,shurba,shurpa,shurbah orshorba (/ˈʃɔːrbə/SHOR-bə)[b] is a broad class ofstews or richsoups found in national cuisines acrossNorth Africa,The Middle East,Iran,Turkey,Southeast Europe,Central Asia,East Africa andSouth Asia. It is often prepared with added ingredients but is also served alone[1] as a broth or with bread.[2]
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The wordchorba in English and in many Balkan languages is a loan from theOttoman Turkishچورباçorba, which itself is a loan fromPersianشورباšōrbā. The spellingshorba could be a direct loan into English from Persian or through a Central or South Asian intermediary.
The word is ultimately a compound ofشورšōr meaning 'salty, brackish' andباbā meaning 'stew, gruel, spoon-meat'.[3] The former is fromParthian𐫢𐫇𐫡šōr meaning 'salty', and the latter fromMiddle Persian*-bāg meaning 'gruel, spoon-meat'.
The etymology can be definitively tied to Persian through the cognateشورباجšōrabāj; in modern Persian, whileشورباšōrbā evolved to mean 'broth, stew',شورباجšōrabāj simply means 'soup'.[4] It is typical for Middle Persian word-final𐭪g to either change toجj or to be dropped altogether in Modern Persian.
Thedialectal Arabic wordشوربةšūrba orشربةšurba is also a loan from Persian and cannot be etymologically tied toشربšariba meaning 'to drink'. That said, it is highly likely thatphono-semantic matching occurred during the loaning of the word into Arabic, which would explain the orthographical difference.
Chorba is also calledshorba (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),sorpa (Kazakh:сорпа)[citation needed] andshorba in (Hindustani:شوربہ /शोरबा). In the Indian subcontinent, the termshirwā is commonly used to mean gravy. It is aMughlai dish and it also has vegetarian forms..
Shorwa is a traditional Afghan dish which is a simple dish which is usually mixed with bread on thedastarkhān.[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 inMoldova andRomania, consists of various vegetables, meat and herbs.Borș is a sour soup that is used in the Moldova region.[8] There are several types of this dish, such asciorbă de perișoare,leek soup,Romanian borscht, andborș de burechiușe.
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