Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)

Roger Mills wrote:

> Historically, even in the US, Greek immigrants are noted for the quantity,
>
>if not always the quality, of their restaurants.
>
>
Well, 'quality' isn't much of an issue with fish-and-chips shops :) (And
they're not restaurants either; almost exclusively take-away.)

>The thing about gyros is the nature of the meat: a mixture of beef and lamb
>made into a longish loaf thing (I don't know what holds it together,
>however); run through longitudinally with a spit and roasted vertically in
>(nowadays) an electric oven (it has a red-hot glowing coil like a heater or
>hot-plate; not the sort of equipment found in the average home kitchen,
>though I suppose you could do it over or next to an open fire, but someone
>would have to keep turning the spit).
>As the outside cooks, thin slices are removed vertically and put into a
>pita, along with chopped tomato, lettuce, yogurt and maybe cucumber.
>Delicious but messy. Does that description match your Australian "souvlaki"?
>
>
Yeah, basically.

...

>>Things involving skewers are kebabs, but kebabs can also be
>>souvlaki-like things except with Turkish bread rather than pita.
>>
>>
>
>Is there a difference between Turkish bread and pita? I thought pita (no
>doubt under local names) was common throughout the eastern Mediterranean.
>
>
Most definitely! Turkish bread has obviously risen, but not much; maybe
a centimetre or two thick, with lots of wholes. Pita bread though is
very flat and solid, apart from the fact that it's normally two layers.
One of the best things about Turkish restaurants apart from everything
else is the Turkish bread! You _must_ try some if you haven't already,
certainly one of the nicest kinds of bread in existence.

Whereas souvlaki is wrapped in pita bread, when making kebabs Turkish
bread is cut open like a roll and the stuff shoved inside it. If I
wanted to find more generic terms (to replace sandwich, which I can't
use as pita and Turkish bread aren't normal bread) to describe souvlaki
and kebabs, I would say 'wraps' and 'rolls' respectively.

...

>Tristan:
>
>
>>Aside from the fact that I wouldn't've thought of describing them as
>>sandwiches (sandwiches need normal bread to satisfy my definition)
>>
>>
>
>..irredeemably ethnocentric.....:-)))))))))
>
>
Well, I have an ethnicity of my own t'maintain, y'know!

>>I always assumed Subway was so called because it originated in or near a
>>subway (presumably in the American sense), and that 'sub' came from
>>this. Then when you came up with 'submarine sandwich' just now, it
>>looked like it was some sort of play on Subway's subs.
>>
>>
>
>No, it's Subway that doing the play...subs ~submarine sandwiches are way
>older.  Come to think of it, maybe some folk-etymology going on here: a long
>subway car filled with different kinds of people =~ a long bread filled with
>goodies.  Perhaps we don't think about (naval) submarines as much as we used
>to.
>
Hm, okay, well I've never heard them called submarine sandwiches ever
before, and the only people in Australia to call them anything like that
(Subs) that I can think of right now is Subway, and they do so in such a
way that I would expect it to be a trademark...

--
Tristan.

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