Gyro, part 2
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There's a chain of about half-a-dozen fast food restaurants called Gyro Shack in Boise, Idaho, where I find myself now. They're cool little shops, just as Boise is a cool (big-)little city spread across a broad, flat plain (nearly three thousand feet in elevation) that lies at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Several things about gyros perplex me. One is how the cones of meat on the vertical, rotating spit cohere and do not fall to pieces, but docilely hang in place oozing their mouthwatering juices waiting to be sliced off, layer after layer. One traditional gyro meat recipe states: "Processing the meat in the food processor and overworking it ensures that the proteins in the meat stick together, like sausage." (source) I still don't get it, since sausage has a casing to hold it together.
Never mind about that physical matter for now, What really bothers me (and lots of other people), is how to pronounce that four-letter word.
Some people say "hero", others pronounce it as in "gyroscope", one person told me to pronounce it like the name of the official currency of the European Union, and so on.
Here are some phonetic transcriptions: /ˈjiː.ɹoʊ/, /ˈjɪɹoʊ/, /ˈʒɪɹoʊ/, /ˈd͡ʒaɪɹoʊ/
Audio recordings here.
Another puzzlement: like so many classical, canonical foods of the Mediterranean (baklava, kebab, kofta, meze, taramasalata, etc., etc.), is gyro a Greek food or a Turkish food — or ultimately Arabic or Persian (and which way?), with a bit of Italian tossed (!) in?
Here's the etymology for gyro:
Back-formation from the plural gyros, from Greek γύρος (gýros); from the turning of the meat on a spit (as a calque of Turkish döner into Greek). Doublet of gyre and gyrus.
sandwich made from roasted lamb, 1971, originally in reference to the meat itself, as roasted on a rotating spit, from Modern Greek gyros "a circle" (see gyre (n.)). Mistaken in English for a plural and shorn of its -s.
Once Gyro Shack breaks out of Boise, it may become part of the giant fast food industry, or maybe, like Nebraskan-Eastern European runza, it will remain an ethnic, regional specialty — except that gyros are already everywhere as street food. Somehow, they seem to resist industrialization and business models. They are the niche food of niche foods.
Selected readings
- "Gyro" (6/26/20)
- "Nontrivial script fail" (5/18/11) — 7th comment
- "'Ingenious herd of charcoal fire'" (4/5/11)
- "Why Do Canadians Eat Donair?" (4/13/07)
- "If you're uneducated you say it right" (2/2/09) — in the comments
- "Ajvar and caviar" (8/1/22)
- "Respect the local pronunciation: runza and Henri" (6/13/24)
Phillip Helbig said,
September 28, 2024 @ 7:05 am
I know a guy who used to go to a Greek restaurant and order a Turkish coffee.
In Germany, Döner is the meat on the spit, which can go into bread or onto a plate. Giros is cooked similarly, but is served on a plate, usually with onions.
Philip Taylor said,
September 28, 2024 @ 7:18 am
As a Briton, I know "gyro" only in its seemingly plural form "gyros" (actually a singular) which I was taught by a native Greek vendor in Germany to pronounce /ˈhɪə rɒs/ (approximately).
Charles in Toronto said,
September 28, 2024 @ 10:31 am
I noticed during my trip to Australia last year, a lot of places spell it "Yiros" in English. Whereas in Canada it's always "Gyros".
Victor Mair said,
September 28, 2024 @ 10:50 am
γύρος
IPA and audio here.
Mark Metcalf said,
September 28, 2024 @ 11:27 am
" One is how the cones of meat on the vertical, rotating spit cohere and do not fall to pieces, but docilely hang in place oozing their mouthwatering juices waiting to be sliced off, layer after layer."
The traditional Turkish döner kebap that I was introduced to while stationed in Turkey during the mid-1980s was composed of seemingly countless thinly sliced, disk-shaped pieces of marinated lamb/meat that were vertically stacked. This wiki photo demonstrates such a construction quite clearly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab
It wasn't until I ate gyros & döner kebaps in the UK and the US that I experienced the meatloaf type of construction that you describe. While still quite tasty, they were subtly different from those in Turkey that seemed to have more of a 'roast meat on a spit' flavor.
Sniffnoy said,
September 28, 2024 @ 12:26 pm
In Ann Arbor they say /ˈjiː.ɹoʊ/ but in New York City they say /ˈd͡ʒaɪɹoʊ/…
Yves Rehbein said,
September 28, 2024 @ 1:15 pm
> I still don't get it, since sausage has a casing to hold it together.
Bavarian Weisswurst for one is usually sucked out of its casing. Blood saussage or lose Wurst is basically gruel and not served in casing, as the sauce in saussagereadily suggests, though it can be, in which case it would go as Rotwurst.
The density of stuffing is what makes the difference between a Thüringer Bratwurst and another one, on which I read an entire paper which explained that one is best eaten fresh and the other is more durable, and they also refered to Streichwurst (viz. spread). Alas I don't remember the details.
Cut to the chase, some saussage may be ductile so that it runs out when the casing is cut open.
Yves Rehbein said,
September 28, 2024 @ 2:25 pm
*sausage, no geminate
The accepted etymology is "salsīcius (“seasoned with salt”), derivative of Latin salsus (“salted”)" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sausage agree to disagree there. Mind, sauce does not quite disagree: "from Vulgar Latin *salsa".
As for gyro, I have never thought about it and though I have heard of it I did at first sight not recognize it. I read it Greek as in gyroscope.
I'd venture a guess that it comes through Scythian mutatis mutandis from PIE *h1ed- "eat" with laryngeal intact and d shifted to rhotic, high vowel remaining as evidence of rhotacism. Namely, I have read that Ossetic retains laryngeal reflexes on the example of this root. Actuallly I'll need to revisit the library. From what I found in Wiktionary: eat, хӕрын has a different etymology, but I'm not sure that's the exact word.
Garrett Wollman said,
September 28, 2024 @ 3:04 pm
This is Language Log, not Food Science Log, so I'll make this brief: the mincing process used for gyro meat is doing the same thing as the tumbling process used to make giant cuboids of "ham" and "turkey breast" for the deli slicer. The agitation breaks some of the cell membranes and releases enzymes, among which are transglutaminases, which bond proteins together into an insoluble mass. In animals, these enzymes are used to create insoluble protein clumps like blood clots, hair, and skin; in food processing, they make a coherent mass out of many small clumps or "flakes" of meat, in which use they are sometimes referred to as "meat glue". Transglutaminases are the reason hamburger gets sticky and cooks into a hockey puck if you overwork it.
Victor Mair said,
September 28, 2024 @ 3:19 pm
I love the analogy with a hockey pock and all the erudition about transglutaminases.
David Morris said,
September 28, 2024 @ 5:07 pm
In Australia, I haven't seen/heard/said 'yiros' for some years. I more recently see/hear 'kebab' (which can be meat (and vegetables) on a skewer (which can also be a 'skewer')). (I found https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/you-say-kebab-i-say-yeeros/il62xzk6j.)
Martin Schwartz said,
September 28, 2024 @ 6:04 pm
As for the (Modern) Greek pronunciation:The gamma, which is
essentially a fricative (continuant) g, becomes palatalized before the
(upsilon) /i/, resulting in a sound like English y as in "year", except that
it often has a preceding trace of velarization. Thus /yíros/ will do.
I found the word (with final sigma) in Babiniotis' big dictionary as the 7th listing (where the meat is indicated as that of a pig)1st); the
1st listing is 'periphery', and the other enties indicate a basic '(going) around'. Not being much of a carnivore, it is only now that I understand that "hero sandwich" is based on the exported Greek word; I always
thought it was a sandwich whose heroism consisted in its length.
Perhaps "hero" is sort of analogically hispanizing pronunciation.
@ Yves Rehbein: No, nothing to do with Scythian, or the IE root
'eat', or Oss. xær-; the latter is from Proto-Iranian *hwar- 'drink, eat'
and may very ultimately be cognate with Eng. swill.
martin schwartz said,
September 28, 2024 @ 6:37 pm
It seems that after all the h-s'wich is different from the g- thing, as I had thought.
Misha Schutt said,
September 28, 2024 @ 7:01 pm
For gyros, I use the [ʝ] pronunciation, a yot with friction, as in German or Swedish. But of course nobody understands that, so I go on to explain. Anyway, the concoction made its way via Lebanese shepherds into Mexico, where it is called “al pastor” ‘shepherd style’, and is seen on many corners, by many food trucks, in LA. I don’t know how they mount the meat, but it’s ubiquitous here. In spite of everything, I call it shawarma (except when speaking Spanish).
Martin Schwartz said,
September 28, 2024 @ 9:09 pm
@Misha Schutt: "A yot with friction"–I didn't know that about German and Swedish j-, but it suits the Greek phonetically–tho phonemically
it's the fricative gamma. On Crete and probably elsewhere it's pronounced žíros. Btw, in Standard Moderrn Greek, even secondary
[y] gets prefrication; thus e.g. Anc. iatrós 'doctor' is in Mod. Gr. written with initial gamma.
Chas Belov said,
September 29, 2024 @ 1:53 am
Here in San Francisco, my observation, subject to error because I wasn't paying that much attention, it pretty much appears as "gyro" on the menu of Greek places, "wrap" or "gyro" at Turkish places, and "shawarma" at Middle Eastern places. I don't think I've ever seen Doner and I've eaten at a number of Turkish places.
David Marjanović said,
September 29, 2024 @ 8:52 am
Döner macht schöner.
Victor Mair said,
September 29, 2024 @ 11:54 am
@Misha Schutt
There's an "al pastor" shop right around the corner from where I'm staying for a couple of days in Boise. I was curious, but had no idea what it meant. Thanks for informing me. I will give it a try this morning on the way out of town. Incidentally, it is only a block away from the Gyro Shack with which I started this thread.
Victor Mair said,
September 29, 2024 @ 1:52 pm
Well, I did go in search of the al pastor shop, but it was quite a merry goose chase, because I kept going around big blocks and every time I thought I was getting close to it, I'd end up at a taco shop. It turns out that the al pastor sandwich is viewed as a kind of taco (soft shell, hard shell, etc.) and it is sold in taco shops, at least in the Boise area where I was. The meat is like gyro meat, and it can be roasted on a rotating vertical spit like the street gyros I'm accustomed to, whence it is called taco de trompo or taco de adobada. A big difference is that its distinctive garnish is pineapple.
Roscoe said,
September 29, 2024 @ 2:06 pm
As a professor of mine once remarked, the problem with donor kebab is that you never know who the doner was.
Tom Dawkes said,
September 29, 2024 @ 3:45 pm
For "hockey puck" what better than Tom Lehrer's "She's my girl"?
Yves Rehbein said,
September 29, 2024 @ 7:00 pm
@ Martin Schwartz, I was sure it was in The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus. Thanks for reminding me to double-check because they do not say that at all.
You may be right about swill. I mention Ossetic because I saw Avestan xᵛar-a- in the new volume of Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen (EWAhd, viz. Old High German) cf. swelgan, where PIE *swelgʰ-, *swelk- or *swel- are ultimately uncertain. It is remarkable that *swel- is also identified with heat, compare sweal, and swelling (q.v.). The mind boggles.
Cheung in the Etymological Dictionary of the Iranian Verb claims "there is probably no need to reconstruct an IE root *swel-". He considers the meaning secondary to the homophone root "to take" and distinguishes a third root "to sound, swear" with Schwartz 1989: Martin Schwartz, Pers. saugand xurdan, etc. 'to take an oath' (not *'to drink sulphur'), Fs Lazard: 293-295. Moreover he specifically points out that the IE "eat" root must have been displaced, with few examples of it in Iranian. I'm still not sure if I believe that.
On another note, if only to distract from my mistake, gluten is related to glue (borrowed) and clay (inherited) and it does look a lot like glūteus but the latter has no certain origin according to pre-Greek theory.
Martin Schwartz said,
September 29, 2024 @ 9:23 pm
@Yves Rehbein: Thanks for reminding me of Martin Schwartz 1989.
with which I now agree. It's been a while. 'Take' > 'eat/drink' also Lat. (con)sumere and Span. tomar.
Michael Watts said,
September 30, 2024 @ 4:04 am
Wiktionary doesn't have a theory of the etymology, but it does specifically dismiss that idea:
Personally, I have never encountered "hero" to refer to a sandwich outside of a crossword puzzle; to me it's one of those words that exist only in the minds of puzzle authors, like "asea".
Benjamin Ernest Orsatti said,
September 30, 2024 @ 9:29 am
Michael W.,
Shh! You're giving away our secrets! Next thing you know, you'll be spilling the tea about Ed Asner's oboe during the Alan Alda era.
J.W. Brewer said,
September 30, 2024 @ 4:03 pm
When I was young and had never actually lived in or near NYC, I was given to understand that "hero" was an NYC-area synonym for what was called a "grinder" in parts of New England (where I went to college) or a "hoagie" in the Greater Philadelphia area (where I grew up) or a "sub" in Generic American. That said, having now lived in or near NYC for over three decades, I have quite rarely encountered "hero" in this meaning. Maybe it was a regionalism which has faded with the passage of time. If anything, what I've encountered instead is the hyperlocal synonym "wedge," which seems specific to some-but-not-all parts of NYC suburbia rather than the city itself. Someone on the internet claims that "wedge" originated no later than the 1960's at a specific deli (Landi's) in Yonkers, but I am not entirely convinced that there may not be rival and more plausible etymologies.
I have mused over the years about the possible connection between that sense of "hero" and one pronunciation of "gyro" but never invested any real research time or formed any emotional stake as to what the answer might be.
Chas Belov said,
October 1, 2024 @ 1:01 am
In San Francisco, I believe al pastor would mainly be found in taquerias. It could be served in a taco, a burrito, or maybe even a torta (sandwich). But the category name for Mexican restaurants that serve this kind of food is taqueria.
I imagine some sit-down Mexican restaurants, which we also have here in San Francisco, might also have al pastor on the menu.
J.W. Brewer said,
October 2, 2024 @ 9:19 am
While trying to track down something else I became aware in passing of a 1969-published novel (presumably lurid and pulpy) entitled "Jyros," with the plot summary given as "A young man in Greenwich Village, getting high on grass and chicks (including a double-date with Siamese Twins) portrays those of the Love Generation, whom the author calls Orgasm Addicts." I don't have any idea how the title is supposed to be pronounced.
It's credited to "J. Joth," which seems likely to be a pseudonym, and probably a pseudonym for someone also known as Jerry Roth, who under that name has another book (or maybe it's the same book with the title changed?) available in German translation that's describes as "Die sexuellen Ausschweifungen der amerikanischen Hippie-Generation."
Philip Taylor said,
October 2, 2024 @ 1:14 pm
JWB — " I don't have any idea how the title is supposed to be pronounced" — well, despite being born in a country where initial "j" is almost invariably pronounced as /dʒ/, I would pronounce "jyros" as /ˈjɪə rɒs/. But how I would pronounce it is clearly no indication as to how it should be pronounced !