Stuffed leaves

Stuffed leaves—more commonly known by its sub-types stuffed grape leaves, stuffed vine leaves, or stuffed cabbage leaves—are a food made of leaves rolled around a filling of minced meat, grains such as rice, or both. It is occasionally known in the English-speaking world by its Turkish name, sarma, which, as a dish of the Ottoman Empire, is also used in Armenian and some Eastern European languages. Since the Ottoman Empire's dissolution, its popularity persists in Turkish, Persian, Greek, Romanian, Iraqi, Levantine, Egyptian, former Yugoslav constituent states, and Armenian cuisines.

Wrapped leaf dishes are part of the broader category of stuffed dishes known as dolma, and they have equivalents (such as the Polish gołąbki) in Eastern European cuisines from the northern Baltic through Romania. The type of leaves used commonly includes cabbage, patience dock, collard, grapevine, kale, or chard leaves.

Terminology and etymology

The word sarma is a Turkish word meaning "wrap" or "wrapped thing". In Turkish culinary terminology, sarma refers specifically to foods in which a filling is wrapped in leaves such as vine or cabbage leaves, in contrast to dolma, which more properly denotes vegetables that are stuffed. Although the exact origins of dishes made by stuffing vegetables and leaves are not known for certain, sarma originated in the Ottoman cuisine and reached its most significant historical form within that culinary tradition.

Sarma made with grape leaves are called yaprak sarması (lit. 'leaf sarma') or yaprak dolması (lit. 'leaf dolma') in Turkish. In other languages they are translated as yabraq (يبرق) or waraq 'inab (ورق عنب) lit. 'vine leaves' or waraq dawālī (ورق دوالي) in Arabic, yarpaq dolması (lit. 'leaf dolma') in Azerbaijani, and dolme barg-e mo (دلمه برگ مو, lit. 'vine leaf dolma') in Persian.