Street food

The national food of Greece, souvlaki, is not as Greek as people believe. Greece’s daily To Vima noted that 190,000 tones of the 300,000 tons of meat used annually to create souvlaki is imported. The cost amounts to half a billion euros.

Payments for a number of European Commission-subsidized projects in Greece have been severely delayed in recent months during the crucial period just before their completion, according to the Association of Greek Construction Companies (SATE).

My napkin was gently folded like a bundle. As I cradled it in my palms I felt the warmth inside. It was as if it were still sizzling in deep oil. As I unfolded the layers of linen, I noticed that my golden fried ball was slightly pointed on one end. That made me curious about the cook; it was surely a clue about his home country. 

Souvlaki (meat on a stick), the hamburger of Greece has made a comeback since the recession began, however despite the resurrection there are some places that never went away.  And what better day than Wednesday, May 6, International No Diet day to try one!

This is from Naz?m Hikmet's poem, "Our Women": "And women, our women, with their magnificent sacred hands? our mothers, lovers, wives, who die without ever having lived and whose place at our table comes after our ox?" 

Like all his work, this is an incredible poem, full of correct observations, describing the place of women in the mind of Turkish men. It was written in 1922.

An Indian who has been living in Romania for over 15 years invented a new sort of kebab he named 'Romanian', which he serves in his own restaurant, the first oriental club in the north-western region of Cluj.

Photo credit: (c) Danish Ashraf / Facebook

Thus wrote an Islamist columnist after the attacks in the French capital. In a related story, his newspaper used the word terror in quotation marks, clearly implying that it disagreed that the attacks in Paris were acts of terror.

In a country whose national identity is so closely connected to its cuisine, France's hard right has seized on a growing appetite for kebabs as proof of cultural "Islamization".