What do YOU call this?

[haresfur]

2 hours ago, farcego said:

Hi, in my experience:

In Spain, I would call it Kebab (mostly beef or chicken, unfortunately lamb is rare)

In Australia, where I lived for years till recently, it's upon the place, in greek restaurants you have Slouvaki (lamb, beef, sometimes chicken), gyros (pork) but also durum or shawarma (lamb, beef, chicken) in street food places with middle-east fashion. In Australia,  kebab is what we call in Spain "pinchos morunos", roughly.

 

I also know that in mexico tacos al pastor are done in this way (Lebanese inmigrants make it popular in that country) [known from Mexicans BTW]

 

Hope it helps

 

cheers

 

Interesting. Here souvlaki is skewered chunks of meat, often sold by fish and chip shops that may or may not have a rotisserie gathering dust in the corner. I think it must be a law that all chippies sell it but learned that it is worth the extra steps to walk 30 metres to the Turkish run shop rather than going to the Chinese shop. However, since a kabab shop opened up across the street, I usually go there for a halal snack pack.

[Annie_H]

Shawarma. I've called it Shawarma pretty much across the board and internationally due to the method of a vertical or horizontal spit/kabob in rotation, then slicing or shaving as it roasts. It is up to the establishment to call it what they want once carved or how it is stacked and spiced. 

Los Taco calls the stacked pork 'trompo' as it is heavy at the top like a spinning toy top. I'm pretty sure it is pork. Adobada is their Shawarma pork on the menu but Adobada usually refers to the spices or wet rub. 

Some Turkish restaurants with a bank of vertical rotisseries use shawarma all over the menu but another will use the Turkish 'Doner'. 

I see Al Pastor and Gyro meats cooked on flat tops all over the city. Not a vertical rotating Shawarma roaster. 

My favorite stop in Astoria Queens, a Greek neighborhood, uses a Shawarma vertical rotis. Gyro with the 'works' is always shaved from the shawarma rotis. All other options are from the flattop griddle/or grill. Ordered accordingly. 

I had never heard Donair until I lived in Halifax, then Calgary. It is usually a beef minced compact log. Not a stacked layer of sliced meat. Not always a vertical shaved 'Shawarma'. Even see it in groceries in Canada sold like cold cuts. From a roasted rectangle log similar to bologna. Beef with an odd Cream sauce. Not tzatziki yogurt cucumber sauce I so love. 

Some still call it Doner, rhymes with boner, lol. Changed to Donair at some point to make it sound fancy. 

 

When I see a vertical or horizontal meat stack in a rotisserie be it lamb, chicken, pork, or beef---a mince or sliced stack and shaved as it roasts...it is Shawarma. To me anyway. 

[FlashJack]

From Melbourne, Australia.

 

I'd call it a giro/gyro and expect the meat to be thinly sliced (not shaved) to make a souva (souvalaki). Melbourne has a large Greek population. Traditionally only lamb but a lot of places here have a second spit of chicken and you can ask for "mixed souva with the lot" (lamb or lamb/chicken, onion, shredded lettuce, tomato and garlicky yoghurt sauce wrapped in pita bread that is warmed on a grill before being filled and rolled).

[bokreta]

Gyros. Default meat expected to be lamb combined with beef.

 

Seattle, with some deep ties to the local Greek community.

[efs88]

Shawarma. And I'd assume lamb.

I live in Michigan, USA

[liuzhou]

11 hours ago, cdh said:

I think Liuzhou's Chinese respondents should get partial credit for their Brazil answer..

 

I dismissed the Brazil answer because that food item was introduced into China via Xinjiang, China's troubled westernmost province where the local language is much more related to Turkish than any Chinese language. Also the culture and religion (Islam) there is very close to Turkish influences.

China's relationship with Brazil is almost zero.

Edited February 7, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

[nickrey]

Where I grew up in South Australia, it was called Yiros. Obviously SA Greeks translated the word differently to those in Melbourne. It is lamb, chicken, or pork

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I don't think I'd ever heard of Shawarma till I joined eGullet.  I don't believe I've ever encountered Shawarma in the wild.

 

[Katie Meadow]

I'm confused. How do you know what to call vertical rotisserie unless you know its origin? If it is Greece I would call it a Gyro. I would have expected it to be lamb, but my daughter, who spent a year in Athens, said it was often beef. If I was in Turkey or the Arab world or Israel I would call it Shawarma. In that case I would expect it to NOT be pork. If I was in Mexico or Los Angeles I would not call it either, but I would ask what THEY called it. If it had a pineapple ring on top I would assume it was pork, most often destined for al pastor tacos. 

 

The onion picture makes me think it comes from somewhere that has onion dome architecture, so I might call it shawarma. From just looking at a picture it would hard to know what to call it unless you had some idea of the spices/flavorings involved. The truth is here in Northern CA I don't get a chance to look at stacked vertical rotating meat very often, so my knowledge is pretty theoretical.

[Orbit]

I would call it Shwarma. I grew up and am from southern California, though I don't live there any more.

[donk79]

I know all the names that have been mentioned,  but when I first see the picture,  I think  Doner Kebab.  Commonly,  that would be the correct name where I live (near Harrisonburg,  Va).  But the real decider on nomenclature  probably comes from me first encountering one while visiting in Germany.

[JeanneCake]

The Greek man who ran the pizza shop next door had one of these, it was on the  menu as "gyro" and it was lamb.

 

Then he sold the place to an immigrant from Kuwait, who called it shawarma. 

 

There was a place 15 or so miles  north of here, named The Shawarma Shop and that's what they called it.  They also had several options for meat: beef, lamb, pork.

 

Me personally, I called it delicious.  The Greek man made fantastic gyros.  The Kuwaiti owner made the most incredible "chicken shawarma" sandwich/sub and I was sorry when he went out of business.

[brucesw]

Multiple cultural influences and cuisines here, too (Houston, Texas).  Have never seen anything like that involving pork - thanks for identifying the meat - I was not sure).

 

Overwhelmingly in the US, Americanized Greek restaurants serve 'gyros' made with a mixture of beef and lamb, minced, mixed with spices  and pressed into a cone shape.  There is no layering of individual pieces of meat, as mentioned above by CDH, I think.  I have read pork is most common in Greece itself although other meats do appear.  That would not commonly be thought of as gyro meat in America.

 

If that's pork then that's not shawarma!

 

I can only think of 2 dishes I've had at Chinese restaurants which I thought might have been shaved - at a Uyghur place and a Lamen place (oil splashed beef lamen).    They're both closed.  I have no idea if either one had an upright roaster like that.

 

Ya got me - I give up.

Edited February 17, 2022 by brucesw (log)

[liuzhou]

26 minutes ago, brucesw said:

Ya got me - I give up.

 

There  is no one correct answer.

 

The names used in particular locations seem linked  to immigration patterns and the immigrants brought their own local names - as always.

 

The USA favours 'gyro' which is the Greek name (γῦρο-ς) which means 'turning'. This reflects the higher levels of immigration from Greece to the USA.

 

Europe on the other hand prefers 'döner' or 'doner' from the Turkish, reflecting emigration patterns there. Döner also means 'turning'. This is often expanded to 'donor kebab', kebab being from the Arabic (as well as used in Persian and Urdu) used throughout the Middle East. Kebab referes to anthing cooked on a spit or skewer, so is a much wider term.

 

Shawarma is from the Syrian version of Arabic - šāwirma. Again, its use probably reflects immigration.

Shashlik comes from the Russian 'Шашлык', which was derived from the Turkish 'šiš' meaning a spit or skewer.

 

Al pastor is from the Spanish for 'shepherd's style' and is based on shawarma brought to Mexico by Lebanese immigrants.

 

As to the meat used in these, this often varies from the immigrants starting point.Greek versions traditionally used pork, whereas Turkish usd lamb or beef.

 

Note: most of t hese names have alternate spellings.

 

[liuzhou]

54 minutes ago, brucesw said:

I can only think of 2 dishes I've had at Chinese restaurants which I thought might have been shaved - at a Uyghur place and a Lamen place (oil splashed beef lamen). 

 

Uyghur places do often have spits similar to the one I pictured. Their culture (and language) is closer to Turkish than to Chinese. Lamian places, not so much, but possible.

[Tropicalsenior]

I haven't seen too many of these in Costa Rica but the ones that are here they call jiros, giros, or gyros and serve the meat in tortillas.

On our trips to Mexico, they were quite common but the most that we saw them was in Mexico City. Every little taco stand had one for  tacos al Pastor.

A friend of ours that has a Mexican restaurant here in Costa Rica asked us to bring one of the mechanisms back from Mexico so that he could make tacos al Pastor. That was quite an adventure. First we had to find it, then we had to carry it back by hand. The components are iron and fire bricks. A pretty heavy little contraption. So what I personally called them is a PIA.

[Lindacakes]

This looks like The Vessel to me.

 

[heidih]

5 hours ago, Tropicalsenior said:

 First we had to find it, then we had to carry it back by hand. The components are iron and fire bricks. A pretty heavy little contraption. So what I personally called them is a PIA.

Aawww you missed the pun op - PITA