Varieties of Döner Experience

I have yet to sample as many varieties of döner kebab as I`d like, due to the aforementioned free breakfast and skipped lunch. Still, I have come to believe the key to delicious döners is to look for as many signs of Turkish proprietership and patronage as possible. The really good döner I had in Frankfurt was run out of a little shop in the bottom of a skyscraper in the banking district. It had "Türkische" in the name, which my rapidly burgeoning powers of language enabled me to translate. Not-the-worst German speaker, indeed.

The key to a good döner, as in so much of cooking, is the sauce. One döner I had used a thin, tomato-based monstrosity. I bought it in a tourist district near the Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station) on the first day I was in Germany. There was no Turkish flag anywhere to be seen and the man selling them was quite fair-skinned. I do not think he really care about the beauty that is the döner. He was merely cashing in on the trend.

Wait a moment. Have I described what the döner is yet?

A hunk of lamb is put on a kebab (a long, rotating stick, like shish kebabs) and roasted. When a döner kebab is ordered, the chef puts some bread, shaped like a pocket, in the toaster, and cuts off strips of meat from the lamb. Then the bread is removed from the toaster and the sauce is spread across it (garlic, yogurt, and-or chili, usually). The meat is thrown in, and the vegetables after that. Usually there is the choice of onions, red cabbage, lettuce, and tomatos mixed with cucumbers. Finally, some garlic sauce is added to the top of the rather hefty construction, at least in good döner shops.

The dish was supposedly developed by Turks living in Germany a while ago. It has since became a staple of the country`s cuisine; there are now döner shops everywhere.

The strangest döner shop I have yet found was in Frankfurt. It was a boat-based döner shop, at a dock on the banks of the Main. There were two flags hanging from the mast at equal heights: one Turkish and one German, and the boat was named Istanbul. All of these I thought were very auspicious signs.

I sat in a park beside the boat for a while, watching its operations.

A radio on the top of the boat was playing a German Top-40 station. After a little while, a song came on that I recognized: Eminem`s "Beautiful." It is the only song I have heard off Eminem`s latest album that I really like. About halfway through the song, the Cathedral bells started ringing and the little stereo was drowned out. I was quite annoyed to tell the truth; I wished to hear the end of the song. After the bells stopped, I sat for awhile longer. After a bit, a woman having a picnic nearby brought a bottle of wine up to the boat, and the man making döners opened it for her.

Everything mixes so strangely here. The food cart sits on a boat. It sells a dish invented by Turks living in Germany. A rap star from Detroit attracts customers, until he is drowned out by bells built by some Kaiser almost a thousand years before. The German woman asks to borrow the Muslim`s corkscrew.