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

From:Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
Date:Tuesday, December 7, 2004, 19:49
On Dec 7, 2004, at 9:06 PM, Roger Mills wrote:
> 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"?
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 :) .
> Souvlaki OTOH are simply chunks of meat on a skewer, cooked on a grill, > constantly brushed with a marinade of oil, lemon and spices. It may be > that these too can be served in a pita with condiments; I don't > recall.
Hey, it's not in the pita unless it's actually *inside* the pita! :-P ;-) -Stephen (Steg) "Get into the Hanuka spirit, everyone! The spirit of guerilla warfare!" ~ an AIM away message

Replies

Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Dan Sulani <dansulani@...>