Talk:Tava

Proposed merge

(moved from Talk: Tawa)

• I definitely agree, but which spelling should be used? Is one spelling more correct than the other, and if so, which? --LesleyW 13:28, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • What links here shows 3 relevant links for each spelling --LesleyW 21:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Preferred spelling is Tava as per India notice board --LesleyW 11:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge text

Text from Tawa article to be merged here:

A tawa is a large, disclike metal utensil, slightly concave and usually made from cast iron or aluminium. Commonly used in Indian cuisine, especially for a whole class of foods called tawa fry or tawa masala. Also used for chaap, pao bhaaji, chaat, tawa parathas, etc.

--LesleyW 12:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed new text (under construction)

A tawa or tawa is a large, flat or gently curved griddle, made from cast iron, steel or aluminium. It is used in Indian cuisine to prepare several kinds of roti, including chapatis and parathas, chaap, pao bhaaji, chaat, tawa parathas, etc.

It is also used for a class of foods known as tawa fry or tawa masala.

--LesleyW 01:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Expand

Pardon me. I have expanded the article by including images and text re flatbread griddles in other cultures. May I suggest going farther? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary, so I think it is good to gather in one article information about flatbread griddles from around the world, rather than creating many stub articles. But maybe the title should be Griddle; currently that page is a redirect to a list of cookware. --Una Smith (talk) 04:59, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

This article is about the "Tava", an Indian cooking utensil. There is already a page for Griddle (not a redirect - just checked). Pictures of people cooking injera don't belong in an article on Indian food. FiveRings (talk) 05:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Tava in Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, a tava is always made of metal, but may not necessarily be round, some smaller ones are rectangular. The bigger, round ones are also called тепсия (tepsiya) It is used only for baking. The sides are high, bigger ones ~7cm, smaller ones ~5cm. They're not convex though, they go straight up, there is very little curving where they start going up. Сач/сачѐ (Sach/sache) is a relatively small, as big as a small tava, round flat clay plate, on which meat and vegetables are placed to cook on the table itself, and fat is not used. The small tava and the sach are about the size of a big frying pan, most big tava are about twice as wide. 82.137.72.33 (talk) 10:58, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

"wp is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary; the Bulgarian tava doesn't really belong in this article" -- Well then why does this article exist? I'm happy with it as it is, I'm just not seeing a difference. I added a lot of detail so the people who added the previous material could trim it down to their liking, which they did and it looks good to me now. But in the end, what is this article supposed to be about? Before I added this material it was all over the place, it still is but seems a bit more focused now. Still doesn't seem encylopedic though. I have the same problem with the Kebab article and others. 82.137.72.36 (talk) 22:29, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I already mentioned in the talk page for Kebab, a few weeks ago, that something should be done, and there should be a discussion, and suggested off the top of my head that it should only be a wikitionary entry and the existing content in it should be split into articles referenced in a disambiguation page. In the end, a lot of these things don't see to have much in common in general, except for being roughly similar -- like the words tava and saj refering to cooking utensils and kebab refering to meals with meat in them, and being referenced with the same word in some language, in some cases English, in some cases other languages. 82.137.72.36 (talk) 22:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I mean this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kebab#Complete_reorganization 82.137.72.36 (talk) 22:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Scottish frying pans

'Frying pan, a similar utensil used in Scotland and elsewhere'

Why is Scotland using a frying pan singled out here? As far as I can tell, they're as cross-cultural as it gets. The Scots have a reputation for deep-frying things, but you don't do that in a fryin pan usually...2001:630:212:238:7254:D2FF:FEC5:1EF6 (talk) 15:45, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Concave!, not convex.

(Started in a storm of justified deep consternation by Vwalvekar (talk) on 26 May 2015.)

@Vwalvekar: Both. That's what u get when u mix 2 types. The frying-pan-type tava looks concave, but the saj is used with the bulging side up, like a spherical dome. There are places where they seem to be using the utensil both ways, depending what suits the dish. Smart design! Or smart people. Arminden (talk) 20:41, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

External links modified

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Why is saj included as a synonym?

I don't see any reliable sources for the inclusion of saj in this article, only some unsourced content that I removed. Which sources should I be looking at for this? Is the saj term ever used to refer to a flat cooking surface? Spudlace (talk) 10:58, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

After some digging i was able to find some source for "sac tava" that sac is a type of tava, (not an alternate name for tava). I added the source and made the changes. Spudlace (talk) 12:18, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Material?

@Spudlace: Article currently says they are made of "spun metal" or "cast metal". It would be nice to be more precise about which metals are commonly used. As I understand it, the most common materials are spun sheet steel and cast iron and aluminum, though copper is sometimes used. Do you have different information? --Macrakis (talk) 15:55, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

I removed it because the term "cast steel" is not used, you may be thinking of carbon steel. Spun metal can be steel or aluminum (spun aluminum is more common), but most people will understand steel to mean the stainless steel used to make frying pans which are made with bonded metals. It's not commonly used for this type of pan, though some manufacturers do make them it isn't cast or spun, it's something called tri-ply. I think it's too much detail ... Spudlace (talk) 17:01, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree that tri-ply is too much detail. I don't think that people will interpret "sheet steel" as only stainless steel, and anyway, as I understand it, tavas can be made from either carbon steel or stainless steel e.g.. My main point was to clarify which metal was being talked about. Are you OK with the current wording? I tried to find an RS for spun metal tavas, but didn't find one -- perhaps you'll have better luck. But I'm not even sure that the production process is needed in this article. --Macrakis (talk) 17:20, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The production process isn't needed so I've removed the production process for aluminum because cast aluminum and spun aluminum are both very common. I changed sheet steel to carbon steel. Because of the properties of stainless steel, almost all stainless steel cookware is multi-ply. It's just not commonly used for this type of pan. Spudlace (talk) 18:24, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

STOP AND REWRITE!!! Definitions: what is a TAVA, what a SAJ? How did they evolve and spread? Then take it from there.

Folks, this article has been written with as much enthusiasm as it has no encyclopedic thinking behind it.

There are lots of metal cooking utensils, frying pans, metal bread baking devices, as well as flat trays in the world. An encyclopedia is there to sort them out, not to mix them up.

First one needs definitions. What is a TAVA? Separately, what is a SAJ? Is there any connection between the two? How did they evolve and spread - both as objects, and as terms? Once there are answers to these basic questions, we can take it from there. The current meaning(s) in various languages are the result of long processes of passing on the concept/technology/object along with its name(s), and it's only normal that they evolved and ended up looking in many different ways (the objects), and meaning different things (the terms). In the lead I even find the mix of the two into one term, "saj tava", which is either a pleonasm, or the local result somewhere of the two terms evolving to mean 2 different things which can be combined. You can't just drop this on people before you've 1. understood it, and then 2. explained it.

I suggest to look at the "usual suspects": Persian and Arabic, often with Mesopotamian roots, common or not; and the Indian subcontinent before the Mughal takeover.

All the Balkanic variations of "tava" have Ottoman Turkish origins, so they don't matter much at this level. Where did the Turks get the concept & the word from?

As it is now, the article is nothing but a classical mixed güveç dish, a stew with meat, potatoes, veggies, spices,... Bon appetit! Arminden (talk) 15:55, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Regional differences in name, shape, purpose (tava v. saj, etc.)

In Azerbaijan, the word tava is used for all sorts of pans. Saj on the other had, is a particular type of frying pan. --Мурад 97 (talk) 22:18, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

It seems obvious that while the utensil has migrated, the two main names (variations on tave and saj) has taken a hole range of meanings, different from place to place, although they're all metal-made cooking utensils. This article is easily in danger of mixing them up like hell. Much more care should be given, like always, to DEFINITIONS, especially regional ones. The Spruce... source focuses on the Indian tawa and states that it can be flat or convex/concave, w. or w/o a handle, small or big. The only variation not described is the non-round, so the square or rectangular one, which shows up in the Balkans. So in India alone (or is it the entire subcontinent?), there is no one form of tawa and no single way to use it. The Azerbaijani saj (see above) is a frying pan – or is it? See the caption of the photo in the gallery! It suggests that it can be turned the other way too! –, while the Levantine saj is always convex-side-up and used to bake (is it 'bake'? Not inside the oven!) flatbreads. Arminden (talk) 22:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

The "sac tava", which (in Turkey?) is a type of tava, shows how far this hybridisation has went. It's like a sport called either "football soccer" or "soccer football" emerging somewhere, that is different from both European and American football. Quite a phenomenon, reflecting how useful this family of utensils can be and how it has spread all over the world (see the mention of the "Indian tawa" in a Caribbean context!), undergoing lots of adaptations. So no way we can cover all this in a simplified "one-catch-all" description, except for a concise lead. Then the article must be all about the variety. Arminden (talk) 22:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Lambiam: hi. About the two terms used for the curved iron plate employed in cooking bread, tava and saj: in this edit from 23 January 2011 you wrote, without offering a source, that in Pakistan the term saj is used. We already had tawa for Pak., so somebody drew the logical conclusion that it's there that the two names overlap, and this apparent mistake has endured for years. I can find no online source for that, on the contrary, judging by this Pakistani posting, saj is not a word used there (it's not a RS, of course, but straight from the horse's mouth, as it comes from a Lebanese food company or restaurant in Lahore). Any comments, other than that 10 years are a long time? :)) Arminden (talk) 18:15, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I have been unable to recreate what I may have been thinking. 10 years is a long time. I'm not in the habit of just making things up, but since I have no personal knowledge of Pakistani cookware and attendant terminology, I must have been seriously confused, or some source I should not have trusted was wrong, or both. I do know (also from direct personal experience) that in Turkish the term sac (the official spelling, even though the final consonant is devoiced) as a mass noun means "sheet metal" but is used as a count noun for large curved pans fashioned from sheet metal like the one shown in the article for baking pita, whereas a tava is an ordinary frying pan with a handle. (The stub article on the Turkish Wikipedia states that a tava is generally made from stainless steel, but that is incorrect; for home cooking ceramic pans are in vogue.) The Turkish sac or sac tava can be used both curved side up for cooking flatbreads and gözleme, and curved side down like a wok for preparing, e.g., kavurma.  --Lambiam 07:30, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

The article seemingly was better in the past. , quoting (an older incarnation of) the Wiki artticle, correctly and concisely states that:

A tava(h), tawa(h), saj, or sac is a large, flat or convex disc-shaped griddle (UK frying pan) made from metal, usually sheet iron, cast iron, sheet steel or aluminium. It is used in South, Central, and West Asia for cooking a variety of flatbreads and as a griddle for meat. It also sometimes refers to ceramic griddles.
In West Asia, tava/saj are invariably convex, while in South Asia, both flat and convex versions are found. ([1])

It's sad to see how we overcooked the article, going from good to bad. Only the "ceramic griddles" bit is unnecessary and I'm glad it's out. Concise, takes into consideration BE/AE variations, articulate - as it should be! Back to the future, please. Arminden (talk) 11:37, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Separate Indian frying pan from baking utensil (tawa from saj?)

Like always when an article's scope is overstretched, as shown by the quasi-impossibility of covering the entire content with a simple title and a concise definition in the lead, it would be better to consider separating the elements into different articles, with a common, "umbrella" article titled in a more general fashion along the lines of "traditional frying pans and griddles" dealing with the larger category & the common traits, like possibly the development history. If not done, the article becomes an "overcooked wok dish", with disparate utensils boiled together to a mushy, shapeless pulp where anything and its opposite can be said, because it'd fit at least one stray variation somewhere.

Frying pan, tray, bread baking spherical dome, flat, concave, convex, with handle, without... A bit too wide a range to be one thing, no matter how versatile.

As a user, I'm leaving the page confused as to what the hell this really is all about, what's a tawa, what's a tava, what's a saj? And that's a poor mark for any encyclopedia article. Arminden (talk) 16:19, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

No etymology, neither for tawa & tava, nor for saj

Where do the 2 words originate from? What is the original meaning in the original languages?

Everything we have on the Turkish meaning of 'tava', from which everything concerning the Balkans is derived, hinges on a single, unreliable, unsourced 2011 (!) edit. If we find out that the origin of the word is in Turkish, rather than Persian, we have everything built on shaky feet. Arminden (talk) 20:17, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

The online dictionary of the regulatory body for the Turkish language, the Turkish Language Association, states that the origin of Turkish tava is Persian. Nişanyan gives Persian تاوه (tâve) as the etymon, with alternative form تابه (tâbe). Wiktionary concurs.  --Lambiam 07:50, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

All sources agree that sac has Turkic roots. For what it is worth, Wiktionary gives the Ottoman Turkish term as the etymon of Arabic صاج‎ (ṣāj), and the article on saj bread on the Arabic Wikipedia, خبز الصاج (ḵubz ālṣāj), refers for the ṣāj part to the Turkish name for the utensil. The photo in the article, uploaded only to the Arabic Wikipedia, is of women baking saj bread in Turkey.  --Lambiam 08:15, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

@Lambiam: hi. Fine, not my playground, yours it is by look of things. So go ahead, add it to the article. Or if you prefer and know any colleagues who deal with etymology in Turkic languages, Persian and/or Arabic, pass it on to them. because right now, the article a) has none, and b) Arabic saj is placed first before Turkish sac, suggesting the wrong direction for the lexical loan. If your sources are reliable (Nişanyan isn't really, and there are thousands of photos with Arab women and their saj), then please go ahead and post them, I'd be grateful and others too. Thank you and have a great year 2022! Arminden (talk) 13:21, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I see Wiktionary offers sač = hair in Proto-Turkish here). A bit hard to see how the jump can be made from hair to metal sheet, which is sometimes offered as a Turkish original meaning for sač/sac. I cannot find RELIABLE sources. Wiktionary, Nişanyan, photos - they don't count as reliable. Nişanyan's merit is of posting his dictionary online, but he collected his material from academic works, those may well be reliable. We need to be weary of folk etymologies and "lexical nationalism". The TDK (Turkish Language Association) dictionary looks good, I'd be a bit skeptical if it declared these all to be Turkic words, but if they say tava is Persian, I 100% believe it. What does it say about sac/sač? Arminden (talk) 13:48, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Turkish has two different nouns that are – as far as we know – etymologically unrelated: sac, in which the final consonant of the stem is voiced, as in "sadge", and saç with an unvoiced final consonant, like in "satch". Only the latter can mean "hair". Some speakers pronounce the naked word sac the same as saç, but in the definite accusative, in which the consonant is no longer word-final, all pronounce sacı and saçı differently.  --Lambiam 14:47, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Lambiam, thank you very much. I got the idea, although I'm not well-versed in the vocabulary of phonetics: does the difference consist in tch vs dj? Like Italian cc in carpaccio vs g in Giovanni? Romanian has both sounds, as well as î = Turkish ı, and a whole lot of Turkish loanwords, and I do profit directly from understanding what you are explaining here. What I don't fully get is why dj would be considered "voiced", and tch not, as in Romanian they are both equally discernibly pronounced, but that might strain too far from the topic here. Anyhow, this is the talk-page, not what the regular Wiki user gets to see. If you can find a way of adding some etymology to the tava/saj article, it would clarify many things and enrich it. It's got a value in itself, but also maybe incentivise others to deal with the way this utensil has spread from region to region. It is by no means a given, but often technology spreads along with the terminology attached to it. Thanks, Arminden (talk) 15:20, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, or like English etch versus edge, or chive versus jive. In Italian, a minimal pair is giarda versus ciarda, and in Romanian, ger versus cer. In phonetics, a consonant is called voiced if the vocal folds vibrate during its production, as they do for vowels (unless the speaker is whispering). This is also what makes the difference between crab and crap, or bed and bet. English gas pronounced with a voiced final consonent (so that it buZZes like gaz) means gasoline, while voiceless (so that it hiSSes) it means a state of matter consisting of free atoms or molecules, as in "helium is a noble gas". I'll try to add something on the etymology when I come around to it.  --Lambiam 16:48, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

This turned out to be a useful day after all! I've learned something useful. And in Romanian, too. Thanks! Arminden (talk) 18:47, 8 January 2022 (UTC)