Opinion The Third Edit: Turkey or Germany: Who owns the döner kebab?

For Germany, the vertical spit has taken a worrying turn. In a recent application to the European Union, Turkey has asked for the döner kebab to be recognised as a Turkish specialty, with only kebabs that adhere to strict criteria — thin slivers of spit-roasted meat (only lamb, beef or chicken), served on a bed of rice, alongside fries, tomatoes and peppers — being recognised as “döner” kebabs. Should the application be accepted, it would effectively demote Germany’s beloved street food — meat packed into a pita and topped with salad and a garlicky yoghurt sauce — to mere “kebabs”.

There is an argument to be made for a broader understanding of food, liberating dishes from political borders and narratives about national pride. Food, after all, is the great traveller — over millennia, dishes have crossed plains, deserts, mountains and rivers along with people, adapting to new circumstances and tastes, finding homes far from their place of origin. This is also the story of the döner kebab: It arrived in Berlin in the 1970s with Turkish immigrants, transformed from a dish for a sit-down meal into a hand-held “sandwich” that could feed the busy German on the go. It could be argued that Turkey’s own criteria for the döner are suspect: Traditionally, lamb was the only acceptable meat for the preparation, which was typically only served with sliced onions.

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Still, Germany’s chagrin over the application seems overblown, considering how extensive food and beverage protection is in the EU: If the Neapolitan Pizza can only be with type 00 or type 0 flour, with toppings from the Campania region, and champagne can only be made in the eponymous region in France using the methode champenoise, then surely Turkey is well within its rights to seek similar protection for the most popular representative of its cuisine in Europe. Either way, the kebab would be just as juicy and delicious, whether or not it’s called a döner.