I was actually surprised that in Greece, gyros is often (if not most often) pork, and not lamb. A quick look on the net seems to agree, saying it’s typically pork or chicken. I live in the land of the processed gyros cone (I believe it was made here in Chicago originally) and it’s usually a mix of lamb & beef, so I always assumed lamb was the usual meat, but apparently not.
At all my local places, the souvlaki is shaved off the cone like a gyro. If you don’t specify, you get tahini sauce…but it’s better with *tzatziki * (or whatever the Lebanese call tzatziki.). Tahini sauce is for felafel, I say.
Oh, I forgot one other variation…in the Left Bank of Paris, you can get a sandwich grec, which is gyro on a chunk of a wide baguette with the usual trimmings. (You can also get it topped with a pile of fresh frites, which you consume before tucking into the sandwich.) I haven’t had one recently, but when I was 19 it was a cheap guilty pleasure. Putting that stuff on a GOOD piece a’ bread is a revelation.
To put this roller coaster back on the rails, I challenge the idea of prosciutto on an Italian hero.
I like prosciutto draped over ripe melon or a cutlet and eaten with a knife and fork, not in a sandwich. Eat that and you gotta stand in front of the bathroom mirror with a roll of dental floss for a half hour or so.
Also, after a healthy bite, the prosciutto drags out of the sandwich and lands in your lap. Maybe I need to get my incisors sharpened.
Interesting. I google “souvlaki” and all I get is pictures of shish kebab type things. Are you sure you’re not thinking of shwarma? Or maybe it is some local usage, but everywhere I’ve been, souvlaki was something like a shish kebab. (Hmm…although it seems that some places use souvlaki to refer to any kind of pita wrap, so I guess it does depend.)
Anyone willing to part with a donor kebab?
Philly’s Best is the place in Chicago where I first encountered a “grinder” and it has always been baked so that is how I assumed it should be. Haven’t had one in a while…salivating…
Ah yes, the meat cone of lamb. I’ve always jokingly referred to a gyros as “lamb bologna” for just that reason. Haven’t had one in a while either…salivating…
This made me cry. I made one trip to Italy a long time ago and I still dream of the food I had. I’m going to fall asleep tonight murmuring salami mortadella parmigiano-reggiano soppressata capicola prosciutto provalone…
In Russia, McDonald’s sometimes offers the McGreek: Two standard beef patties, onion, tomato, creamy sauce, all wrapped in a pita. Surprisingly tasty, even without ground cumin or coriander.
I don’t think it is much of a coincidence: “shish” means skewer, in Turkish. “Souvlaki” (cf kalamaki) is a small skewer in Greek. So nothing strictly to do with pitas: it is meat roasted on a skewer, like gyros refers to meat roasted on a rotating meat cone. You can have either one by itself with stuff on the side or wrapped in a pita or baguette with condiments and salad. I would be surprised if “souvlaki” places didn’t also serve gyros and other pita wraps, because why not, so maybe that is where the confusion originates. It’s true that in Greece it is commonly prepared from pork, not sure why, which is understandably less common in Turkey and the Middle East.
When I was a young’un, the dominant Greek meat-wrapped-in-pita foodstuff was the souvlaki, and it was always made by frying the individual cubes of meat (and always lamb). At some point while I was out of the country everyone seemed to transfer all together to the big-hunk-o-skewered-meat mechanism - but still kept calling it souvlaki. My front-running theory is that the big hunk-o-meat is just that much easier to deal with when you’re selling fast food.
Also enabled the entry of that vastly inferior foodstuff, the chicken souvlaki
It’s a long established fact that the world’s best Italian subs are Philly Hoagies. And, the best rolls for hoagies are Amoroso. Don’t settle for Amoroso’s pre-packed grocery store rolls (not the same animal), get the fresh ones. I was about to say drive to South Philly for a big barrel of Amoroso rolls, but I see you now need to head to New Jersey (sorry about that, but enduring Jersey will demonstrate your commitment to hoagie excellence).
What are you going to do with all those leftover rolls? Eating Italian hoagies every day wouldn’t be very healthy. So, here’s what you do: eat Italian hoagies every other day. Eat Philly cheesesteaks on the alternate days! By some wonderful coincidental quirk of the universe, Amoroso rolls also make the best cheesesteak rolls.
The best meats, cheese and veggies have already been mentioned. But be sure to use a lot of high octane olive oil and sprinkle liberally with oregano and basil. Try dried red flake and banana peppers, too.
To contine a stupid hijack for a moment, in Northern Greece as of April 2019, the most commom pronunciation was “Hair-Oh”.
(Sadly, lamb was not nearly as common on most menus as I had imagined, and very expensive compared to other food, but for seafood lovers, Greece is paradise, right up there with costal Portugal or Spain. I had some charcoal grilled, cheese stuffed whole calamari that was so mollyfocking tasty that I considered sneaking out of the hotel once my wife was asleep so I could go back and get more, but I decided that wouldn’t be good form on a honeymoon)
ETA—Souvalaki is cubed, marinated pork, lamb or chicken grilled over a flame on a skewer.
Because Texas isn’t Mexico. I can’t get fajitas in Mexico unless I go to Chili’s, an American restaurant chain. But you know what’s very similar to fajitas? “Alambres,” which are not shish-kabobs despite often (but not always) being cooked on a spit (“wire”).
Whether or not some random Mexican in Texas made tacos from skirt steak isn’t relevant. Mexicans make tacos out of everything. It doesn’t matter what meal you are eating; if there are tortillas present, you will “taquiar.”
The fajita dish as we know it was developed and commercialized in Texas. It’s Tex-Mex and definitely not Mexican.
Do we need to address chimichangas next?
Shall we call al pastor “authentic Mexican” given it was brought in by the Lebanese?
Bickering over “authenticity” gets complicated real quick.
Ha un periscopio.
It isn’t, but the Mexican diaspora created it (as far as I understand it), so I personally treat it as a type of regional Mexican food, just like I treat Italian-American as a regional extension of Italian traditions (often Southern Italian.) I mean, I suppose it depends on how you define your terms and where you draw the line, but I have no issue with calling food created outside the borders of the country or ethnicity by that national or ethnic diaspora as being regional extensions of that cuisine.
I could be remembering wrong- but wasn’t at least part of Texas actually Mexico until Texas declared its independence? The Mexican flag is one of the “Six flags over Texas”.
Why can’t food be both authentic and American? Or is “authentic” just another word for “foreign”?
because snobbery.
It’s not exactly another word for foreign - it’s often actually used to contrast the “authentic” food with the “modified by/for Americans” version. For example, if I get food from the nearby Chinese takeout, it’s prepared differently than when my Chinese husband goes to get it - and even what he gets there is different from what’s served in Chinese restaurants in a Chinese neighborhood (although that’s more a matter of different items on the menu rather than different preparation). If you go to a certain type of Italian-American restaurant in the Northeastern US, you would think that Italians don’t eat vegetables except in salads , serve pasta as a side dish and have either red sauce and/or cheese on every protein.