My name is Nikola and I was asked by a Korean artist girl, Chung, to make a poster which would promote a Nantes kebab store called Cyberkebab in exchange for her buying certain goods online for a friend of mine, Brian, whom I owe money for several years now.
We spoke about it for a while and she also had some problems with the city authorities because not everyone can put posters on streets like this, but we finally got all the shit together and I decided that the best way to make this poster is to investigate the history of how kebab came to Nantes, therefore explaining the entire history which resulted in this little store called Cyberkebab being here in your pretty little French city.
It did not seam like an easy task and I was also very happy to find out Jules Verne was born in Nantes. That was inspiring for about a minute or two which is actually a lot, so I started investigating by reading books, searching online and even talking to people who made, ate and loved the kebab in all its forms (Turkish, Greek, Jewish, Spanish and even Chinese kebab). I tried my best to take in as much as information as I could and I tried to present it in a best way I can on this poster so you too can enjoy the knowledge of something as crucial and potent as kebab.
Kebab was actually first made in China during the Qing dynasty. There is an old Chinese tale about this how a forest ghost called Huhn Lah was angry at the villagers so he stole all of their sheep using a very long tree trunk and sticking sheep on it and than eating them. Similar stories appear in Japan and India around 2000 b.c. so I concluded that this is as close as I can get to the origin of kebab.
Eventually small groups of Chinese traders were traveling more and more to the west spreading the idea of kebab first to India and than middle east where they met with Jews who loved the kebab and even formed a secret sect of kebab lovers.
The sect was called “Secret ancient sect of kebab” and I as much as it sounds weird it is true. This sect was actually a sect of Jewish pacifists who wanted to assimilate and integrate first with the Romans and than with the Muslims and they believed that good food can help the peace – good food like kebab. Of course they were silly ideologists and in these attempts most of them got killed in horrible ways while they tried to offer the Jewish peace kebab to angry army men. I am still not clear what is the actual relationship they invented between God and kebab but it did not work – only thing that did work was the power of kebab to produce mystical atmosphere just as with the Chinese fairy tale.
Some of the members of the sect survived and did spread the knowledge to Romans and Muslims. This knowledge of kebab remained in Ottoman empire while it faded in Italy only to be slightly recognized in some dishes like Carne lavinato di Napoli.
Some other members ran away to Africa and gave the knowledge of Jewish religion and kebab to some of the west coast tribes which were than captured and deported in slavery in North America and than after the civil war they ran away to Europe and that is the whole story.
I hope you enjoyed it and that you will eat kebab every day and feel mystical about it.
Thank you.
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