Gyro! Gyro! Gyro!

The background on American Gyros unfolds in this article by David Segal of the NYTimes.

The History of the Gyro, With a Dollop of Serendipity

As starters, I’d like to say that aha! I was right! (In fact, I am always right) Gyros are pronounced Yee-ros, not Jai-ros or Gee-ros.

In this article, the mystery meat and the Father of American Gyros are finally revealed. Surprise, surprise! He ain’t no Greek. In fact, he was a Jewish man named John Garlic.

I’ve always assumed that each restaurant made its own gyros but alas, there is a gyros manufacturing business that delivers all these “oversized Popsicles the shade of a Band-Aid” to Greek restaurants.

I have to admit that I always thought gyros were what meat wrapped in flatbread with vegetables and sauce was called. The restaurants I frequented for gyros would ask me if I wanted the pork, lamb or chicken gyro. Just last weekend, we ordered from this Greek restaurant and when they didn’t label the type of meat in the picture captioned Gyro, I had to ask. The answer was pork, which I found out in this article, isn’t what is traditionally used by the Greeks.

In Malaysia, Greek restaurants are rare though the Turkish people and Middle Easterners have something similar known as kebabs and shawarma respectively. I remember going to Atria, the sad pink neighborhood “shopping centre” near my high school to feast on kebabs and gossip about life for hours on end with my good friends Sheri, Jin Jin and Wai Shien. Here in Beijing, we can find gyros in little street stalls but they usually come with lamb instead of the traditional Greek gyro meat. Back in Athens (oh how appropriate), Georgia, my friend Alise and I loved the little Gyro Wrap joint. Unabashedly (though I always made a mental note to not go on a date there), I’d squeeze gyro juice all over the table and get sauce all over my mouth. Good times.

Posted by The Slow Chopper