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

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

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