Also called "ceviche", "sebiche" and "seviche", it cannot be denied that its name sparks curiosity in those who hear it, and even more in those who have to write it for some reason.
How to call it
In fact, according to the Royal Spanish Academy, it can be written in any of these forms, depending on the location where it is prepared; which can be, for example: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru.
But, why is it called that? The truth is that the theories about the reasons for this vary greatly depending on the author in question.
For example, in 1952, one suggested that the name came from the word "cebo", because according to him, that’s what they called the dishes when they were small, and since this one had considerably thin pieces of fish, it would make sense.
However, there was also a suggestion that there was a high probability that "ceviche" shared etymology with another similarly sounding term: "escabeche", which, after translating from Andalusian Arabic, classical Arabic, or Old Persian, would mean "vinegar soup".
Andean origin
Similarly, a Peruvian geographer and historian claimed that the name of this dish originated from a Quechua word, "siwichi", which means "tender fish" or "tender fish". According to his hypothesis, the word got confused with "sikba" —"vinegar soup"— after the conquest of the Inca Empire.
Finally, the last theory comes from another historian whose research indicated that the word "ceviche" derived from the Arabic "sibech", a mixture of orange juice, lemon juice, and raw fish, which the Moorish women took as a sort of war ration.
