A rose by any other name would smell so sweet, Shakespeare wrote, but it’s not clear how he’d feel about an official order to restaurants in Weimar, Germany that they can no longer call döner kebabs döner kebabs.
The originally Turkish minced meat snack that has become one of Germany’s most popular foods is now largely factory-produced and shipped to restaurants to go onto the vertical spit roaster—and it arrives with ‘flavor enhancers’ and perhaps a dash of preservatives, a violation of the standard set in the Deutsches Lebensmittelbuch, or German book of food regulations, that in 1997 limited the ingredients to lamb, beef, egg, sale, spice, onions, milk and yogurt.
Health experts argue that some of the additives are harmful to health, especially cardiovascular; manufacturers claim they are necessary for tenderness and taste. While there’s been little enforcement generally, the Thuringia state Lebensmittelüberwachungsamt (Just had to get that word in) or food code enforcement office has cracked down.
The crackdown hasn’t taken the chemicals out of the food or the food off the menu; it’s simply being sold as ‘Drehspeiss im Fladenbrot’ or rotisserie in pita. But, according to press reports, everyone’s still asking for döner.
