Shawarma, that beloved food craze that hit our shores in the late '80s until today, is now officially enshrined in the 2009 update of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 11th edition.

Defined as "a sandwich especially of sliced lamb or chicken, vegetables, and often tahini wrapped in pita bread," shawarma should no longer be flagged as a spelling error in MS Word's future incarnations as well. The Filipino version of shawarma is a sandwich of roast beef or chicken on pita bread with tomatoes, onions, and lettuce slathered with garlic-yoghurt sauce.

Shawarma is among the 100 new words added to the Merriam-Webster's 2009 update. It joins other food terms like:

Locavore ("a person eating foods grown locally")

Acai (a species of palm tree whose berries and heart of palm are made into beverage and salad respectively, according to Wikipedia), and

Goji (aka wolfberry, drank as an herbal tea and used as vegetable, again according to Wikipedia).

The culinary world continues to be a good source of new words. Last year, more food words were included in the 2008 update of the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. These were:

Edamame ("immature green soybeans")

Pescatarian ("a vegetarian who eats fish"),

Soju (a Korean vodka distilled from rice), and

Prosecco ("a sparkling Italian wine").

Meantime, two food words were also inscribed in the 11th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, published in 2006:

Emulsion ("a fine dispersion of one liquid or puréed food substance in another: ravioli with pea and ginger emulsion"), and

Ponzu (in Japanese cookery, a sauce or dip made with soy sauce and citrus juice).

So the next time you play Scrabble, insist that shawarma is now in the dictionary and score some points.

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