#118 The @blocktrades World Cup | My Selections for the Semi Finals ⚽️🏆 聊聊世界各地的烤肉串 🍢

---

Meat skewers being roasted over charcoal on a Mangal (the grilling apparatus)
飘香的街头烤肉

^{photo by @itchyfeetdonica, shot in Moscow
Donica多~拍于莫斯科}

Shashlik or shashlyk, is translated from Turkic languages as "skewerable". It is a kind of skewered and grilled cubes of meat popular in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Caucasus, the Baltics, and the Middle East. There are similar skewered meat in other parts of the world, like the kaochuanr in China, arrosticini in Italy, brochette in France and Catalonia, anticuchos in Peru and other Andean states...

The Cossacks borrowed the word "shashlyk" from the Crimean Tatars, and this type of food finally reached Moscow in the late 19th century and became popular across Russia. It is commonly sold as street food and cooked in outdoor gatherings, like the beloved barbie by Aussies and the churrasco across Latin America and Europe.

题图里的烤肉串在俄罗斯街头很常见，是我在莫斯科的一个美食节上拍的。当时循着四溢的肉香，发现这位中亚装束的小哥在卖这种面包夹烤肉，就买了一份尝了个鲜，味道不错。烤肉的火候恰到好处，外焦里嫩，新鲜的面包带着芝麻的香气，一起吃到嘴里很有满足感。估计他是来自乌兹别克斯坦之类的某个斯坦国，因为在俄罗斯各地看到不少乌兹别克斯坦人开的烤肉餐馆。

这种肉串通常被叫作Shashlik，来自突厥语，意为“可以串起来的”。早在16世纪的时候，哥萨克人就从克里米亚鞑靼人那里借用了这个词，而一直到19世纪末期，这种烤肉串的吃法才传到了莫斯科，然后逐渐风靡全俄罗斯。除了街头和餐馆卖这种肉串，人们在户外聚会时也常常立起烤肉架，就像澳洲人钟爱的户外烧烤barbie和拉美盛行的烤肉churrasco一样，一边烤着吃，一边喝酒聊天，好不快活。=）

这类Shashlik在中亚、东欧、高加索地区、波罗的海各国还有中东的伊朗、以色列、土耳其等地都很受欢迎。其他国家也有类似的烤肉串，只是大小、调料、腌制方法、口味等不尽相同，比如中国的串儿写得我此刻好想撸串儿、意大利的arrosticini、法国和西班牙加泰罗尼亚地区的小烤串brochette（这两种跟中国常见的苗条娇小类肉串最相似，比较入味。个人认为这几个西南欧国家在吃方面完胜德国荷兰英国之类的中西北欧同伴）、秘鲁等安第斯地区的串烧anticuchos（有牛肉鸡肉等，以牛心最为普遍，起初我还有些抵触，觉得吃心太可怕了，后来在一些偏僻的安第斯山区实在没的吃，只能天天吃这个，发现薄薄的切片烤得挺脆嫩，其实完全没有内脏的气味，口感类似鸡胗，蘸着摊主给的辣酱，就着烤土豆吃，很是美味。可见人一旦被逼到绝境，真是什么都做的出来啊，连吃心都成了家常便饭......）。

下面进入正题 -- 预测2018俄罗斯世界杯的半决赛结果。因为不懂足球，但又不想太水，所以扯了扯更加了解的主办地和全球各地类似的美食，哈哈哈。。。想玩的小伙伴可以点下面链接看看游戏规则，一起来猜吧！:)

---

Russia 2018 World Cup is coming to the exciting stage of semi finals tomorrow! Let's move along to predict the results! Which 2 teams do you think will make it to the final? Check out the details of the contest run by @blocktrades, @anomadsoul and @acidyo to join the fun! =)

Here's my prediction for the semi finals:

Score	Team	vs	Team	Score
1	France	vs	Belgium	2
1	Croatia	vs	England	2

---

Thank you for reading. Please tell me what you think in the comments. Until next time! =)

感谢阅读！你的关注/点赞/留言/转发就是对我最好的支持~ 下次见！:)

---

Here are some of my travel shots. Follow me for more adventures around the globe!