Mystery Meat: The Gyro

First things first: you say tomato, I say yee-row - I cannot stand hearing the other pronunciation of the word when referring to this delicious sandwich. So when you read gyro, remember the g is a y, and the y is a long e, and we can be friends.

I've been looking around New Orleans for good Greek food, and found nothing yet. Despite the kitsch, I am a big fan of Niko Niko's in Houston. Ann Arbor has no Greek food worth eating (seriously, the prominently named place on Main St will not be named in this space, but avoid it all costs - I'll explain another day in a post about worst meals ever). So I'm still looking around NOLA.

But while waiting to a find my Mediterranean fix, an interesting story has been in the news lately. It turns out that most restaurants in America serve mass produced gyro meat that comes from one factory, Kronos. Think of it as SPAM in the shape of a lamb shank. The New York Times has video and an article, about the process - worth watching for lovers of this lamb(ish) sandwich.

On a side note, I've heard that Ann Arbor doesn't do proper gyros, because health codes won't allow a piece of meat to hang out on a spit for 12 hours a day. The NYT article seems to confirm that the oversanitized, factory-formed version of meat is a way to get around those health codes. Personally, I'd rather eat a real piece of meat, and take my risk with some germs.

Now I need to find a gyro... preferably with someone who can pronounce it correctly.