Episode Details

Doner, gyros, and shawarma all mean turning, which is a clue that this food is defined by how it is cooked. This episode traces the vertical rotisserie back to 19th-century Ottoman cooks in Bursa and Kastamonu, explains how standing the spit upright lets the meat baste itself, and follows the dish into the elite restaurants of 1940s Istanbul.

We follow the spit as migrants carried it to Greece, the Arab world, and Mexico, where Lebanese immigrants helped inspire tacos al pastor. Then we look at Kadir Nurman's 1972 Berlin sandwich and Germany's 3.5 billion euro kebab industry, local versions from the Halifax donair to Dutch kapsalon and Australia's halal snack pack, Turkey's 2022 EU bid to protect the recipe, and food safety rules for kebab meat.

• Why a vertical spit keeps meat juicy by basting it as the fat drips down
• How Greek refugees, Arab cooks, and Lebanese immigrants in Mexico carried the technique abroad
• How Kadir Nurman's portable sandwich at Berlin's Zoo station built a huge German industry
• How the Halifax donair, Rotterdam's kapsalon, and Australia's halal snack pack adapted the dish
• Why Turkey's bid for EU protection of the recipe drew objections from Germany