Pitagyros mit Beilagen und Bier (Gaststätte)

Gyros—in some regions, chiefly

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

, anglicized as a gyro (; el, γύρος, yíros/gyros, turn, )—is meat cooked on a vertical

rotisserie Rotisserie, also known as spit-roasting, is a style of roasting where meat is skewered on a spit – a long solid rod used to hold food while it is being cooked over a fire in a fireplace or over a campfire, or roasted in an oven. This meth ...

, then sliced and served wrapped or stuffed in pita bread, along with ingredients such as

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the on ...

, fried potatoes, and tzatziki. In Greece, it is normally made with

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved ...

or sometimes with

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

, whilst beef and lamb are also used in other countries.

History

Grilling a vertical spit of stacked meat and slicing it off as it cooks was developed in

Bursa ( grc-gre, Προῦσα, Proûsa, Latin: Prusa, ota, بورسه, Arabic:بورصة) is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the ...

Kenneth F. Kiple, Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas, eds., ''Cambridge World History of Food'', Cambridge, 2000. . Vol. 2, p. 1147 in the 19th century in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

, and called doner kebab ( tr, döner kebap). Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, doner kebab made with lamb was present in Athens, introduced by immigrants from

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

, possibly with the

population exchange between Greece and Turkey The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey ( el, Ἡ Ἀνταλλαγή, I Antallagí, ota, مبادله, Mübâdele, tr, Mübadele) stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at ...

. The Greek version is normally made with pork and served with tzatziki, and became known as gyros. By 1970, gyros wraps were already a popular fast food in Athens, as well as in Chicago and New York City. At that time, although vertical rotisseries were starting to be mass-produced in the US by Gyros Inc. of Chicago, the stacks of meat were still hand-made. There are several claimants to have introduced the first mass-produced gyros to the United States.

Name

The name comes from the Greek (, 'circle' or 'turn'), and is a

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...

of the Turkish word , from , also meaning "turn". It was originally called () in Greece. The word was criticized in mid-1970s Greece for being Turkish.Γιάκωβος Σ. Διζικιρικής, Να ξετουρκέψουμε τη γλώσσα μας 'Let Us De-Turkify our Language', Athens 1975, p. 62, proposes substituting for , but ''The New York Times'' was already using the word ''gyro'' in English in 1971 (4 Sept. 23/1) according to the ''OED'', 1993 online edition
''s.v.''
/ref> The word ''gyro'' or ''gyros'' was already in use in American English by at least 1970, and along with in Greek, eventually came to replace ''doner kebab'' for the Greek version of the dish. Some Greek restaurants in the US, such as the Syntagma Square in New York City—which can be seen briefly in the 1976 film ''

Taxi Driver ''Taxi Driver'' is a 1976 American film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, and Albert Brooks. Set in a decaying ...

''—continued to use both ''doner kebab'' and ''gyros'' to refer to the same dish, in the 1970s. In Athens and other parts of southern Greece, the skewered meat dish elsewhere called ''

souvlaki Souvlaki ( el, σουβλάκι, , ; plural: , ), is a popular Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer. It is usually eaten straight off the skewer while still hot. It can be served with ...

'', is known as ''kalamaki'', while ''souvlaki'' is a term used generally for gyros, and similar dishes. In Greek, "gyros" is a

nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...

singular noun, but the final 's' is often interpreted as an English plural, leading to the singular

back-formation In etymology, back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via inflection, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the ...

"gyro". The Greek pronunciation is , though some English speakers pronounce it .

Preparation

In Greece, gyros is normally made with pork, though other meats are used in other countries. Chicken is common, and lamb or beef may be found more rarely. Typical American mass-produced gyros are made with finely ground beef mixed with lamb. For hand-made gyros, meat is cut into approximately round, thin, flat slices, which are then stacked on a spit and seasoned. Fat trimmings are usually interspersed. Spices may include

cumin Cumin ( or , or Article title
) (''Cuminum cyminum'') is a

oregano Oregano (, ; ''Origanum vulgare'') is a species of flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae. It was native to the Mediterranean region, but widely naturalised elsewhere in the temperate Northern Hemisphere. Oregano is a woody perennial ...

thyme Thyme () is the herb (dried aerial parts) of some members of the genus ''Thymus'' of aromatic perennial evergreen herbs in the mint family Lamiaceae. Thymes are relatives of the oregano genus '' Origanum'', with both plants being mostly indigen ...

rosemary ''Salvia rosmarinus'' (), commonly known as rosemary, is a shrub with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple, or blue flowers, native plant, native to the Mediterranean Region, Mediterranean region. Until 2017, it was kn ...

, and others. The pieces of meat, in the shape of an inverted cone, are placed on a tall vertical

, which turns slowly in front of a source of heat or

broiler A broiler is any chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') that is bred and raised specifically for meat production. Most commercial broilers reach slaughter weight between four and six weeks of age, although slower growing breeds reach slaugh ...

. As the cone cooks, lower parts are basted with the juices running off the upper parts. The outside of the meat is sliced vertically in thin, crisp shavings when done. The rate of roasting can be adjusted by varying the intensity of the heat, the distance between the heat and the meat, and the speed of spit rotation, thus allowing the cook to adjust for varying rates of consumption. In Greece, it is customarily served in an oiled, lightly grilled piece of pita, rolled up with sliced tomatoes, chopped onions, lettuce, and fried potatoes, sometimes topped with tzatziki, or, sometimes in northern Greece, ketchup or mustard.

References

External links

* {{Street food Arab cuisine Fast food Flatbread dishes Greek cuisine Greek words and phrases Levantine cuisine Meat dishes Mediterranean cuisine Middle Eastern grilled meats National dishes Sandwiches Spit-cooked foods

History

Name

Preparation

See also

References

External links