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

On 7 Dec, Steg Belsky wrote:

> That's... that's... that's SHAWARMA!
> Well, mostly.
> Weirdly-staying-together cylinder of meat, roasted on a slowly-spinning
> rotisserie-like spit, but vertical, served by slicing off cooked bits
> vertically, and put in a pita.
> Shawarma is chicken, turkey, and/or lamb, though; never beef as far as
> i know.  Generally served with a wider variety of choices for add-ons,
> though - chopped tomatos & cucumbers ("israeli salad"), cabbage,
> _hharif_ (hot sauce/paste), _amba_ (spicy mango-based sauce), _hhumus_
> (chickpea paste), _tehhina_ (sesame dressing), pickles, and /tS)ips/
> (British-style french fries) are relatively common ones.  Oh, and
> _matbuhha_ and "Turkish salad", which are mashed-tomato-based and
> mashed-pepper-based additions.  and eggplant.  You won't find all those
> things at every neighborhood shawarma/felafel joint, but they all seem
> to be pretty common add-ins for roasted meat fast food like shawarma,
> kebab, shishlik, etc.; also for felafel.  All these add-ins are known
> categorically as _salatim_ "salads" but except for israeli salad,
> they're mostly only 'salad' in the sense that tuna salad is a salad.
>
> Shaul and/or Dan can correct me if my glazed international-student eyes
> are missing some important distinctions :) .
Are you kidding, Steg??! Felafel is _food_! (I often have one for lunch!)
Shawarma, OTOH, is what put the "junk" into "junk-food"! ;-)
Seriously! IME, the "meat" that they press together into a cylinder
is odds and ends that the meat producers couldn't get rid of any other way.
It is usually somewhat tough and totally tasteless! To remedy that,
on top of the rotating cylinder of "meat", the schawarma vendors usually
put a huge glob of fat (presumably beef or lamb). While the "meat"
turns beside the vertical grill, the fat melts bit by bit and makes its way
onto the stuff below, thus imparting any flavor one might taste!
(Sometimes they add an onion to the fat on top so that it too can
dribble down some flavor!)
    In the past, I used to eat schawarma on occasion. I can't anymore! :-P

    Regarding the other types of meat: my family doesn't usually eat
kebabs. If we cook chopped meat, it's usually patties
done American style rather than Middle-Eastern kebabs.
    Personally, I'm a bit ambivalent about how I eat shishlik
(which I understand as skewered meat/vegetables). Sometimes
I eat them apart from the accompanying pita and sometimes I
stuff them into the pita and eat them that way.

    I agree with Joe's definition of a pita. You can't wrap anything
in the local pitas because they are too thick (but I like them that way!).

    Here in Israel, we also get a "Georgean" bread (I forget what its
Georgean name is), which is about 25 centimeters (10 inches) long
and about 10 centimeters (4 inches) wide as I recall,
sort of low (maybe about the height of a hotdog bun or a little
higher). Very tasty! I once ordered a tuna-salad sandwich at a
restaurant and asked for it to be on that bread.  I was expecting
a couple of slices and a filling. They brought me
a whole loaf, cut down the side like a hotdog bun, and filled to
overflowing with tuna-salad. :-)  It was delicious!

Regarding the "salad" add-ons, Steg, IMHO you pretty much covered it.
By "hharif" do you include the Yemmenite "sxug" (spelling?).
If so, it's worth noting that there are two types: red and green.
Contrary to what one might expect, the red one is only hot.
The green stuff will kill you! ;-)
    You also left out pickled hot peppers (the pale green ones).
I love them in my felafels.


Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.

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