Inventions of the Kebabic Kind

What is this urban legend about Berlin being the birthplace of döner? This is simply not true. I could not believe my ears when I heard of this.. One article admits “ [a] club-shaped piece of meat cut by hand from a vertically turning spit goes back more than 100 years in Turkey”. People in TR believe the birthplace as the city of Bursa, and the exact year is claimed to be as 1867. But then again, that could be another nationalist fairy tale in Turkey (it would not be the first).

Serving it as fast food might have been the invention here, or maybe Berlin was the first major European city to serve the dish in franchises. Who knows. But the invention of döner (meaning ‘it turns’).. No. Greek gyro, Arabic shawarma, or Armenian tarna (literally means to turn) are all variations of the same idea that were served all over the place in Eastern Europe and Middle East, for a long time. Someone needs to set the record straight.