Turkish kebabs in Germany

culinary cultures — By Bob Riel on April 6, 2007 at 2:54 am

What do Turkish kebab sandwiches have to do with German culture or the German economy? Plenty, these days, according to this story in the Los Angeles Times, which recounts how Germany is trying to create a systemÂ for kebab chefs to be integrated into the workforce. If the labor angle is uninteresting, you might still enjoyÂ the article for its mouthwatering descriptions of Turkish kebabs.

… one must appreciate the sauce-drenched, onion-scented, shaved-meat beauty in a pita known as the doner, or spinning, kebab. Fat and messy, it is the Turkish immigrant’s gift to Germany, a bit of meal-time chaos in a nation that doesn’t like its peas to roll too close to the mashed potatoes.

Integration is often not a success story here, but the kebab has found a home, slipping in amid the sausage and beer like a distant, exotic uncle. It’s munched on the run and can fill the brawniest of laborers. When the bars close, and the soul is still restless, the kebab beckons, a late-night snack for the subway ride home. It sheds lettuce, bleeds tomatoes and has challenged dry cleaners from Hamburg to Hesse.

Now that maddeningly persistent German virtue known as order is being imposed on the untidy kebab. The Vocational School for Gastronomy and Nutrition here is offering a six-month course that in July will award the first kebab diplomas … The aim is to enhance the image of the kebab industry and give its workers, most of whom are first- and second-generation Turkish immigrants with limited educations, training toward better opportunities.

“In Germany if you are not integrated in the labor market, you are not integrated,” said Metin Harmanci of Entrepreneurs Without Borders, an organization that advises immigrant businesses and seeks equality in the workplace. “It’s difficult for immigrants to enter the labor market.”