Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
Turkish Delight
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Dear Travel Journal,
I believe in fast food the way some people believe in God or model railroading. For them, there’s spiritual comfort or the hobbyist’s sense of fulfillment. For me, there’s tight-fitting pants.
As a junk-food junkie, I collect some of my most enduring ideas about a country by sampling its fast food. Fast food, street food, snack food—more than elaborate and expensive dining—is the people’s food.
In Berlin, I served up stereotypes, embraced cliches, invented my own bullshit. I’m sure some of my snap judgments must be as flaky as a Turkish pastry, but—unlike the advice I give my high school history students or my own kids—I’d rather munch on the comfort food of my flawed fictions than ruin my vacations with reality.
At Mustafa's Gemüse Kebap, my döner kebab is succulent, aromatic, abundant. The taste and texture of döner kebab—which immigrated from Turkey—transport me.
The Ottoman Empire suffuses each bite. The Grand Bazaar. Red tea. Golden baklava. Thick coffee in small cups. The Bosporus flowing past Hagia Sophia. The warmly welcoming, sometimes testy, Turkish people.
Thinly sliced lamb is carved off a vertical rotisserie, then stuffed into a fresh pita bread, buttered and toasted, then layered with grilled veggies, tomato, lettuce, cabbage, onion, sumac, cheese, specialty sauces. Was there ever a sandwich so perfect?
Behind the food counter, an olive-skinned carver, roughly in his forties, with a slight paunch, has dark hair, thick eyebrows, strong nose and a sharp knife. He doesn’t smile or frown, talk or laugh. The meat peels off the rotisserie with military precision. His grandfather probably fought with Ataturk at Gallipoli.
In Berlin and around the world, rightwing xenophobes fear foreigners, but there’s never a ban on the importation of recipes. And on the Left, when it comes to dining out, cultural appropriation is wildly popular.
Other than Turkey itself, more Turks live in Germany than anywhere else in the world. Non-Aryan immigrants have made the döner kebab a ubiquitous Berlin fast food. A measure, I try to convince myself, of Germany’s evolving tolerance for the Other and the Outsider.
All over Berlin, hot dog sellers serve long, skinny hot dogs in round, fat rolls, indecently exposing both ends of the hot dog. I conclude that Germans are spatially challenged. Here, I think, might be an insight into the German psyche and Germanic geographic overreach.
Another breed of hot dog hawkers shows off German ingenuity and technological prowess. Roving hot dog sellers turn themselves into fully functional, mobile hot dog stands. Portable red and yellow metal hot dog carts hang from large suspenders or shoulder harnesses. Cantilevered on the front side of the contraption is a small Hibachi-like grill with hot coals. Condiments and cocktail napkins hang off both sides.
Sightseeing in a fast-food coma is like looking though a fast-moving train window. I can see the countryside, the villages, the farmhouses, but the truth of a place remains veiled, opaque, blurry.
Stopping to get my bearings at a curbside food stand is when I start to truly misunderstand a country.
