🇮🇶 The cattle breeds of Iraq

Cattle stand quietly behind Iraq's kitchen rather than at its centre. Beef reaches the table in kebabs, stews and cured meats, but lamb is the country's favourite meat, and dairy appears chiefly as cheese and yogurt. Iraq's farming is known for wheat, rice, barley and dates.

• Lamb is the favourite meat; beef, chicken, goat and fish are also eaten.
• Beef is cured into pastırma and ground into pomegranate soup.
• Stone tablets from about 1900 BC list 20 kinds of cheese in ancient Iraq.
• Pork is forbidden to Iraqi Muslims under Sharia law.
• Iraq ranks among the world's biggest date producers.

Cattle in Iraq

Cattle keep a modest place in Iraq, a country whose food story runs from ancient Mesopotamia through the Abbasid court at Baghdad. In the fields, the old staples are crops: wheat, barley and rice in lower Mesopotamia, along with dates, of which Iraq is one of the world's biggest producers. Meat at the table means mostly lamb, the favourite, with chicken, goat, fish and beef after it. Beef turns up grilled on kebab skewers, simmered in stews served over rice, minced into meatballs and cured as pastırma. Dairy appears as cheese, including baladi, feta and halloumi, and as yogurt, a kitchen essential. Pork is off the table for Muslims under Sharia. Beside all this kitchen detail, the herds themselves and the ways they are kept stay out of sight.

Milk, butter and beef

Beef is the clearest cattle product on the Iraqi table, though it ranks behind lamb, the country's favourite meat. It is grilled on skewers as kebab, minced for meatballs, simmered with okra or aubergine in tomato stews, and ground into a sour pomegranate soup. Veal joins white bean stew, and cured beef becomes pastırma, a highly seasoned dried meat of the old Ottoman lands. Shawarma wraps may carry shaved beef among other meats. From milk come cheese such as baladi, feta and halloumi, and yogurt, a kitchen essential used in dips like jajik. Pork is forbidden to Muslims, which keeps lamb, beef, chicken and goat at the centre of the meat plate.