For hundreds of millions of people from around the world that have visited Greece over the past decades one thing that more-or-less comes to mind when recalling their “food experiences” in the east Mediterranean country is the humble but filling souvlaki – essentially “meat on the stick” that’s often packed and folded into a type of pita bread with other ingredients, usually tomatoes, onions, the tangy yoghurt-and-garlic based tzatziki sauce and even fries.
In this edition of the “Explaining Greece” podcast, Dorothea Lentis, a biologist and clinical health researcher who lectures on biomedical sciences at Deree – the American College of Greece, explains what a souvlaki actually is, compared to the very similar and also homegrown gyro, for instance, or to the famous Turkish favorite doner and its expatriate “brother”: the doner-kebab.
She details a single souvlaki’s nutritional value, depending on how one orders this street food, the concept of a “diet souvlaki” and even recent inflationary pressure that’s making the traditionally inexpensive fare pricier.
Giorgos Tsambas, the co-founder of the successful NYC-area food truck business King Souvlaki, talks about “Greek street food” in the “Big Apple”.
