Vlog:Our life in Greece (10 May 2021) Dinner , eating Greek burger and Greek souvlaki
5Athens - Greece.
Souvlaki (Greek: σουβλάκι [suˈvlaci]), plural souvlakia, is a popular Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer. It is usually eaten straight off the skewer while still hot. It can be served with pita bread, fried potatoes, lemon, and sauces, but the souvlaki itself is eaten on its own, with the side dishes eaten subsequently. The meat usually used in Greece and Cyprus is pork, although chicken, beef, and lamb may also be used. In other countries (and for tourists), souvlaki may be made with meats such as lamb, beef, chicken, and sometimes fish.
The word souvlaki is a diminutive of the Medieval Greek souvla (σούβλα meaning "skewer") itself borrowed from Latin subula.[1][2] "Souvlaki" is the common term in Macedonia (Greece) and other regions of northern Greece, while in southern Greece and around Athens it is commonly known[citation needed] as kalamaki (καλαμάκι meaning "small reed").
Souvlaki pita
Pita is a form of partially leavened, flat, round bread with a diameter of approximately 15 centimetres (6 inches), used to wrap souvlaki or gyros. It comes pre-baked and will additionally be grilled on the meat drippings just before serving, unless the customer requests it not to be. In Athens and southern Greece, it is called pita-kalamaki.
A souvlaki-pita consists of souvlaki meat garnished with sliced tomatoes and onions, fried potatoes, tzatziki, and wrapped in a lightly grilled pita. When chicken is used instead of pork meat, tzatziki and onions are replaced with a special yellow mustard sauce and lettuce to be compatible with its taste; various other garnishes and sauces are possible, including shredded lettuce, paprika, fried potatoes, ketchup, and mustard. Sauces like ktipiti, Russian salad or melitzanosalata can also be used as an extra option. Any of these components may not be included, at the request of the customer. Hungry customers may occasionally request a two-pita wrapping (diplopito) and/or a double meat serving (dikalamo).
In Greek culture, the practice of cooking food on spits or skewers historically dates back to the Bronze Age.[3] Excavations in Santorini, Greece, unearthed sets of stone cooking supports used by the natives of the island before the Thera eruption of the 17th century BC; souvlaki was "a popular delicacy in Santorini back in 2000 BC."[4] In the stone cooking supports, there are pairs of indentations that were likely used for holding skewers and the line of holes in the base allowed the coals to be supplied with air.[5]
In Mycenaean Greece, "souvlaki trays" were discovered in Gla, Mycenae, and Pylos.[3] The "souvlaki trays" (or portable grills) used by the Mycenaean Greeks were rectangular ceramic pans that sat underneath skewers of meat.[3] It is not clear whether these trays would have been placed directly over a fire or if the pans would have held hot coals like a portable barbecue pit.[3][6] Spit supports appear to "continue in use into the Early Iron Age at Nichoria."[3] In Greek literature, Homer in the Iliad (1.465) mentions pieces of meat roasted on spits (ὀβελός); this is also mentioned in the works of Aristophanes,[7] Xenophon,[8] Aristotle,[9] and others.[10][11] In Classical Greece, a small spit or skewer was known as ὀβελίσκος (obeliskos),[12] and Aristophanes mentions such skewers being used to roast thrushes.[13]
In the Byzantine Empire, the Greek author of the Prodromic Poems (4.231) mentions "the hot meat shops" of Constantinople providing clients with spit-roasting meat slices similar to souvlaki known as psenasis souglitarea.[14]
Modern-day souvlaki was described by Gustave Flaubert, a French traveler, who observed Greeks "grilling pieces of meat on a bamboo stick" during his visit to the Boeotian countryside in 1850.[15] However, modern-day souvlaki was not widely distributed in Greece until after World War II.[15] Souvlaki skewers served as fast food started to be sold widely in the 1960s, after being introduced by vendors from Boeotia.[15] The first known use of the word souvlaki in English was in 1942.[16]
The issue of whether modern-day souvlaki skewers are a continuation of ancient Greek culinary traditions or came to Greece via Turkish cuisine and should be considered a Greek styling of shish kebab is a topic of sometimes heated debate, at least between Greeks and Turks.[17]
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