[Sca-cooks] schwarma/gyro

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius answered my question with:
<<<
 > What's a "schwarma"? Sounds like the makings for a Gyro, though...

It's a Turkish near-equivalent, now found all over the Arab-speaking
Middle East and Israel. I vaguely remember reading about gyros being
"invented" in Greece as a commercial variant using an electric
vertical rotisserie called a Gyro. The main difference is that
schwarma, also spelled shwarma or shawarma, which is apparently
derived from a Turkish expression meaning "turning spit", is made by
stacking up sliced or flat slabs of muscle meat, things like flank or
boneless breast or skirt meat, or chicken breasts, sometimes layered
with sliced fat, and then mounting the stack on the spit. A gyro is
seasoned and cooked, and often served, similarly, but the meat is
generally ground.

When you slice the browned schwarma off the main mass on the spit,
the layers tend to fuse together somewhat, sometimes giving it a sort
of streaky-bacon appearance, but the strips tend to fall apart a bit
while you're eating it, which is why my jerry-rigged leftover
schwarma seemed appropriate. >>>

Interesting. Perhaps it is a regional thing, or perhaps a matter of  
calling something by the name that most people have come to know  
something by, even if not completely correct, but the gyros I've had  
at Pennsic and Gulf Wars and in the one or two places here in town  
where you can get similar sandwiches have always called them gyros  
and they've been slices of meat, not ground meat. I do remember  
getting some sort of seasoned meatball things, perhaps on a skewer,  
but I don't remember what they were called.

I also remember one place that used flour tortillas instead of the  
usual flat, puffy bread for their gyros. Maybe at this last Pennsic?  
Not the same thing at all. bah.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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