Where should you travel for one of the most authentic gyros in America?
Why is the name pronounced the way it is?
Keep watching for all those answers about this classic Greek dish and a lot more.
"Gyro?"
"Ooh!"
Nowadays, the gyro is an iconic food that represents Greek cuisine, but its real origin
isn't easy to pinpoint on a map.
According to the The New York Times, its origins can be traced as far back as the early spit-roasted
meats served in Persia to Alexander the Great's army.
But the upright rotisserie that defines modern gyro cooking first entered history far later,
around the 1830s in the Ottoman Empire to be specific.
According to Priscilla Mary Isin, author of Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine,
the Ottomans likely first began using vertical spits to save space in compact food shops
and markets.
The dish that arose from these sizzling Turkish rotisseries is called döner kebab.
It has different ingredients than the modern gyro, but the fact that they're both roasted
on an upright rotisserie suggests that döner kebabs played an important part in the development
of the gyro.
Despite this far-reaching origin, the dish does maintain strong ties to Greece.
In the 1920s, Greek, Turkish, and Armenian immigrants from across Asia Minor helped to
popularize the style of rotisserie cooking.
Then as the fast food movement of the 1950s roared in, immigrants again played a crucial
part in helping the gyro develop into its current form as many Greeks headed to America.
When it comes to food, the World Wars are often regarded as times of sacrifice and rationing,
but this was also a period of significant food migration.
When populations of refugees began fleeing ravaged lands across Europe, Asia, and Africa,
one of the few things they could carry with them was their culinary knowledge.
Thus, the roots of the first gyro traveled with these migrants during the first half
of the 20th century.
Between 1919 and 1922, a conflict known as the Greco-Turkish War resulted in a forced
population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
Turkish Muslims were compulsorily removed from Greece, and Greeks were driven back to
their own country.
The ensuing "Asia Minor Catastrophe" resulted in a cultural exchange as immigrating Greeks
merged with Eastern European populations of Armenians and Turks, moved across the continent,
and brought döner kebabs with them.
A decade after World War II, Greeks began to leave Europe in order to escape the economic
hardship of the post-war years.
And again, the gyro came along with them.
In 1965, the United States repealed certain restrictions on Greek immigrants, leading
to a growth in the Greek-American population.
The boom was especially large in cities like Chicago and New York.
At the time, America was in the midst of a fast food revolution that the gyro would fit
perfectly into.
Readily available, inexpensive food is part of the fabric of both New York and Chicago.
In the 1970s, a quick-foods revolution was happening throughout the country.
New York vendors were taking to the street with new flavors and curbside techniques,
using upright gyro rotisseries to save space within their food carts just like previous
generations had.
The easy-to-handle sandwich offered something fresh, hot, and inexpensive.
Meanwhile, a full-scale gyro industry was developing in Chicago, and Greek immigrants
were joining the Midwest's culinary business in large numbers.
Many of them sold American foods in their shops and ate Greek food at home.
That is until a day in 1965, when a man named George Apostolou claims he began selling the
first gyros in America at his Parkview Restaurant in Chicago.
By the time that New Yorkers started slinging street-side gyros at Olympic speeds, industry-minded
Chicagoans were already imagining how to mass produce them for a hungry market.
After gyro vendors started emerging on New York street corners, industrialized gyro cone
makers began moving into Chicago's meatpacking industry to meet their needs.
Up until the late 1970s, people serving gyros were mostly making the characteristic meat
cones one by one, from passed-down family recipes and within their own kitchens.
But that wasn't very efficient, so various businesses began to develop pre-stacked, flash
frozen, ready-to-cook cones that could be shipped nationwide.
These cones are made from a mix of meat trimmings: sometimes beef and lamb, occasionally pork.
The meats are ground together, seasoned with breadcrumbs and spices, then compacted under
intense hydraulic pressure.
They may not look appetizing when flash frozen, but if you've ever eaten a gyro from a chain
restaurant, then it's likely that you've enjoyed these pre-fab cones in their tastiest form.
Despite George Apostolou's claim to also have started the first mass-produced gyro line,
Peter Parthenis of Chicago maintains that his pre-made cones were the earliest on the
scene.
So early, in fact, that he would actually deliver them to customers by Greyhound bus.
The legacy of who started the modern gyro industry may be contested, but the success
of the business is far from questionable.
While the gyro is an internationally recognized food with a global history, there are few
places where the sandwich is as craved as it is in America.
Considering the thousands of lunch carts, restaurants, and fast food giants that sell
gyros, there's no doubt that the U.S. has a massive appetite for the sandwich.
According to Business Wire, Arby's sells 27 million gyros a year when you combine the
several options available on its menu.
The chain's gyro meat is sourced right off of spit roast rotisseries, which benefits
gyro makers like Kronos Inc.
Back in 2012, Kronos' then-CEO Michael Austin claimed that over 100 million gyros sourced
from his company were consumed annually in the United States.
That's a big chunk of meat.
Unsurprisingly, the taste for new and different flavors from the Mediterranean area and Asia
Minor has traveled alongside the gyro.
These days, finding dishes inspired by or complementary to the gyro is fairly easy.
As a descendent of the döner kebab, the gyro gets its character from the rich tradition
of spit roasted cooking, but it isn't the only food with this birthright.
Döner has provided an identity for many styles of food that developed in the space between
Europe and Asia, and shawarma is another notable example.
"There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here.
I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."
Both the gyro and shawarma derive their identity from specially skewered and seasoned meat
hunks that are cooked and sliced in particular ways, though their respective sources of meat
are often different.
In Greece, gyros are made mostly of pork, while in America it's a blend of lamb and
beef.
Meanwhile, the Middle Eastern shawarma includes chicken, beef, and even fish, but never pork,
due to religious dietary restrictions.
Both sandwiches are served in pita and piled with toppings, but even these aren't the same
for both.
Shawarma is also heavily seasoned with regional spices like sumac and za'atar.
While many shawarma chefs use a standing rotisserie, the dish can be and often is cooked horizontally.
This cooking style may occasionally be used in Greek-American restaurants, but a proper
gyro comes thinly sliced straight from the cone.
Despite its similarities with shawarma, the gyro still maintains a distinct personality.
Another popular Greek food is the souvlaki, which shares some traits with the gyro and
is often served at the same restaurants.
Unfortunately, just like gyros, souvlaki has suffered its own cases of mistaken identity,
as this distinctly Greek dish is often confused with the standard kebab.
Souvlaki is similar to a kebab insofar as it's skewered and grilled horizontally, but
souvlaki meat is often pork, whereas traditional kebabs are anything but.
Souvlaki shares a similar marinade, seasoning, and flavor with gyros, but since the defining
part of the gyro is the upright grilling, you may wonder how exactly these two are actually
related.
Ultimately, it's a classic chicken-or-the-egg scenario.
"The egg came first.
It just happened to have been laid by a bird that was not a chicken."
The modern gyro became popular in Greece in the 1920s, and then in America in the 70s.
Yet ancient Greeks like Aristotle were consuming souvlaki centuries before the first rotisseries
began turning out gyro meat.
Then World War II essentially erased the availability of the meat cuts needed to make souvlaki,
while the scraps characteristic of gyros hung around.
The two foods thereby swapped places in popularity for decades.
Eventually, the American hunger for gyros evolved into cravings for other Greek foods,
which encouraged the rebirth of souvlaki.
And now the two can easily be served together as part of a full Greek meal.
Americans may eat an incredible amount of gyros annually, but no matter how many pounds
they pack away, this food still belongs to the Greeks.
That comes with some privileges, including the right to dress up the gyro with a variety
of condiments and unique ingredient combinations.
In America, the classic gyro is served as a toasted pita filled with thinly sliced lamb,
beef, or both.
It's then topped with lettuce, tomato, red onions, and tzatziki sauce.
The tangy toppings accent the spices of the meat, and the entire concoction leaves you
with a flavor-packed bite of the Mediterranean.
But this isn't the standard on the other side of the Atlantic.
For starters, lamb gyros are rare in Greece, as most native ones are made from pork.
According to the blog "Home in Greece," the sandwich is also topped differently by native
Greeks.
Eaters in the north of the country often substitute ketchup and mustard for the tzatziki, and
Greeks regularly stuff their pitas with French fries in order to make an all-in-one meal.
Just when we thought a gyro couldn't be any more convenient, the Greeks reinvent the game.
With the right seasoning, spicing, and marinating recipes, it's entirely possible to make something
that tastes like a gyro at home.
But if you've had the pleasure of eating gyro meat off of a spit, you'll be able to recognize
the difference in the meat's texture.
If you're dreaming of eating the crispy edges and juicy fillings of an authentic gyro, then
you should know just how crucial the upright rotisserie really is.
Thanks to gravity, the upright stack of meat bastes each lower layer below it with the
fat and juice of the strip above, all throughout the cooking process.
This action is what develops the crusty edges that define gyro meat texture.
It's also what makes the inside layers moist and flavorful.
For the best outcome, the upright rotisserie is furnaced by coal instead of convection
heaters in order to develop a true char.
Again, it is possible to make delicious gyros at home, but if you really care about texture
and authenticity, then you should visit your neighborhood gyro specialist.
So do you say it "yee-roh" or "jeer-oh"?
You may have also heard "hee-roh," "gear-oh," or "jy-roh."
When someone suggests ordering Greek food, the pronunciation of this sandwich always
ends up as a low-hanging fruit for the jokers in the group.
"Yee-roh."
"Yo-yo."
"Yee-roh."
"Yolo."
"Yee-roh!"
"Sergio?"
"Yeeeer-oh!"
Despite all that, the gyro's etymology is serious business.
According to The Online Etymology Dictionary, the word "gyro" comes from the Greek word
"gyros," which means "to spin," as well as the word "gheereezo," which means "to turn."
Since gyros are a recreation of the rotating Turkish döner kebab, it's clear that the
Greek name for the dish literally comes from the movement of the rotisserie.
If it had developed in America, we might've ended up calling it a "spin" sandwich, so
it's probably for the best that it originated in Greece.
Due to their tricky pronunciation, gyros are sometimes mistaken for the Italian-style hero
sandwich, but the two aren't particularly similar, as the hero is closer to a traditional
hoagie or sub.
No matter how you choose to say the word, the outcome of ordering one will be the same,
as any worthwhile gyro is sure to leave you with a very grateful mouth.
So the next time you eat a warm bundle of pita and spit roasted meats, just think about
how far the tradition was carried in order to make it to your plate.
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