Beef and chicken glisten as they rotate slowly on vertical spits before they are carved off in razor-thin strips. Two cooks slide from a sizzling griddle to a warm toaster in a practiced dance. Mounds of fresh tomatoes, cabbage and red onions shine in a colorful tableau.
The scene at Kebap With Attitude in Berlin’s trendy Mitte neighborhood is typical of any street-side stand or restaurant where cooks pile the ingredients into pita bread to create the city’s beloved döner kebab.
But the snack’s status could be in jeopardy if the European Commission approves a bid by Turkey to regulate what can legally take the döner kebab name.
In the balance is an industry that generates annual sales of roughly 2.3 billion euros (nearly $2.6 billion) in Germany alone, and 3.5 billion euros (nearly $3.9 billion) across Europe, according to the Berlin-based Association of Turkish Döner Producers in Europe.
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In April, Turkey applied to have döner kebab protected under a status called “traditional specialty guaranteed.” It’s below the vaunted “protected designation of origin” that applies to geographic region-specific products, like Champagne from its eponymous region in France, but could still impact kebab-shop owners, their individual recipes and their customers throughout Germany.
Under Turkey’s proposal, beef would be required to come from cattle that is at least 16 months old. It would be marinated with specific amounts of animal fat, yogurt or milk, onion, salt, and thyme, as well as black, red and white peppers. The final product be sliced off the vertical spit into pieces that are 3 to 5 millimeters (0.1 to 0.2 inches) thick. Chicken would be similarly regulated.
I want a proper British kebab. I want an angry brown man who is 94% beard to hand me a congealed slab of suspicious meat drenched in garlic sauce. Like I can tell you the kebab I’m eating right now isn’t a real kebab because I’m eating it while sober. The Kebab shop is always ran by a huge dude called Amir. Amir does not speak English. He does speak every other language in the world. Including “I’m shit myself drunk” -ese. “HARGHN JUGHBO GELRCIH PLAGHS?” you ask him. He nods. He begins shaving “meat” off that huge fucking rotisserie beef thing. Your brain, floating as it is in vodka, offers one word, “hoss?”. Amir grins. He has heard that joke before. There’s no horse in Amir’s kebabs. Oh no. Horse is for those fancy fuckers on the main road. Amir’s meat is heady mix of rat, greyhound and eastern European girls who aren’t very good at holding their breath. Amir gestures to the sad-looking vegetables on the counter, but you’ve already fell asleep with your face pressed against the counter glass. Amir tops your kebab with lettuce, cucumbers, bubble wrap and Styrofoam. He then adds so much garlic sauce that those ingredients cease to be. Amir grunts, and hands you your kebab. He grunts again when you nearly leave without paying. You stagger back to the counter and thrust a - wad of sweaty fivers into his hands. Amir gives you your exact fucking change.