Tail fat

It is known under the name kurdyuk in Russian and in Central Asian languages, from the proto-Turkic *kudruk 'tail'. Tail fat is known in Arabic as , (leeyeh, leyyah, or layeh), zaaka in Algeria, kuyruk yağı 'tail fat' in Turkish, and [donbe or dombe] in Iran, (Alya) in Hebrew, words which may be found in ancient texts as well as in local food culture and in sheep breeds' names. ==History==

Fat tailed sheep are believed to date back to the 4th millennium BC, the earliest depiction of such sheep can be found in Uruk, 3000BC. According to food historian Gil Marks, tail fat was the principal cooking fat in Central Asia before the advent of modern international trade. Tail fat was mentioned as a cooking fat in several of the recipes included in the 10th-century Arabic cookbook kitab al-tabikh Abbasid Caliphate author Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, the book referred to it as alya. Historian Nawal Nasrallah states that was considered an indespinsible ingredient in Iraqi cuisine until the 1960s. According to The Oxford Companion to Food (2007), fat tailed sheep make up 25% of the worlds sheep, and is predominant in North Africa and the Mashriq region, fat-tailed sheep make up 80% of Turkey's sheep. ==Use==

Tail fat is a core ingredient in Turkish Adana kebabı. Syrian shawarma uses tail fat as an ingredient, as well as some Palestinian and Lebanese dishes. Tail fat is a core ingredient of qawarma; spiced lamb meat preserved in tail fat. Muslims in China use tail fat as a pork substitute to comply with Islamic dietary laws. ==References==