Sunday - April 18, 2010

A test Post

Hero? Not that kind, the other kind. What, like a sandwich? Yup. But it’s spelled gyro. Pronounced “yee-roh”, not “gy-row” or “gee-row”, and which sounds awfully close to “hero”. How about that: a chunk of some kind of bread, filled with meat and veg, goes by nearly the same name the world over. At least in places where they’ve invented meat and bread.

Of course, in some parts of the world they just have to be different, and call a gyro a doner kebab. Why a “kebab”? Same reason why it’s a “gyro”: it means meat roasted on a spit. The spit turns around, um, gyroscopically? It gyrates? And kebab, or kabab, or kabaab ... it’s all the same idea ... is the spit that the turning roasting meat is on. Nothing new under the sun, whether the word is originally Turkish, Persian, Arabic, whatever. My bet is that “kebab” is older than any of the languages. It really means “we won’t go hungry tonight, woo-hoo!!”

So what’s the difference? Well, a proper gyro is slices of lamb sausage, or highly seasoned lamb, cooked on a spit and then stuffed into a flat bread with big chunks of onion, tomato, lettuce, and sauce. Sauce made from yogurt and dill. And a doner kebab is slices of lamb sausage, or highly seasoned lamb, cooked on a spit and then stuffed into a flat bread with big chunks of onion, tomato, lettuce, and sauce. Um, a different kind of sauce, also made from yogurt. Just no dill. See? Major, total difference. Worth fighting wars over, no doubt.

The whole idea ... greasy hot meat wrapped up in a slab of unleavened bread, with some veg ... has been around forever. Diomedes probably go them to go at 2am when his wine bowl was empty. Cold meat, and actual slices of yeast bread were a European variation. They had knives, but not enough fire. Sauce not included, or onnaside, aka au jus. A sammich is a sammich. A handmeal, whether your culture has invented forks and chopsticks yet or not. Eeeh, gimme extra sauce widdat!

And there is no real difference between pita bread and plain old naan or other kinds of flatbread either. Same stuff, or close enough. It’s just that the Indians never figured out that you can open a pocket in the middle. Their loss.

Gyros hit the USA in the early 70s. Now doner kebabs are taking over Germany. And I can’t blame them. Who wants the wurst when you can have the best? And nothing beats hot greasy food at 2am once all the bars have closed.

So all that was old, ancient even, is new again.

Doner kebab becomes Germany’s favorite fast food

BERLIN — Forget about bratwurst, currywurst and other kinds of sausages — doner kebab, or shawarma, has overtaken traditional German fast food as the country’s favorite snack on the go.

First brought to Berlin by Turkish immigrants in the 1970s, the grilled meat snack that comes wrapped in a pita bread with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, onions and different dressings, is now being sold everywhere in Germany from the Baltic Sea to the Bavarian Alps.

Students and late night revelers relish it as much as construction workers, children and foreign backpackers on a tight budget.

“We assume that doner kebab is the Germans’ favorite fast food by now,” said Yunus Ulusoy, an expert from the Center for the Study of Turkey in Essen, who has done extensive research on how the ethnic specialty conquered Germany’s culinary mainstream.

The secret behind the doner’s success story is not only its satisfying grilled taste, Ulusoy said, but also the big portions and its affordability — a regular doner in a pita costs only between 2.50 euros and 5 euros ($3.30 to $6.70).

The veal and chicken sandwiches are more popular than pizza, hamburgers, French fries and even classic German sausages, according to a poll by German Men’s Health magazine from 2008.

“We can actually no longer speak of Turkish food, because the Germans like it even better than the Turks,” said Ulusoy.

Some 15,500 doner places in Germany sell about 400 tons of doner meat every day, according to ATDID, the Association of Turkish Doner Producers in Europe. About 60,000 workers produce, cut and process the hearty delicacy with annual sales of 2.5 billion euros ($3.3 billion).

Horry Clap, you know it’s gone viral when a sandwich has it’s own personal trade organization. Next thing you know they’ll be a PAC, and then the scandals will break when the DMSM (Deustch Main Stream Media) finds out Angela Merkel is a doner recipient. What, like hearts and lungs and stuff? No, just choice thigh meat. Well roasted, extra spice. Sauce onna side.

VS.

Hungry yet?

Arrgh, an update on the update update! 3.5.9 installs, and the very first time I fire it up, it tells me to upgrade to 3.6.3. What. Ever. Fine. So I just went through the whole damn process all over again, but with the same results. As long as I can post here, I really don’t care about their other fixes. And I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. [crosses fingers, presses UPDATE button].

Posted by Drew458     on 04/18/2010 at 06:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining •  
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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