h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...but after a few lagers, the most irresistable delicacy in the world seems to me to be the doner kebab. Revoltingly unpalettable when sober, the kebab becomes the food of the gods after a pint or ten. Believed to be Greek in origin (although examination of the contents of mummified Egyptian soldiers' icky bits found in jars has revealed that they were also partial to a bread/lamb combo suspiciously similar to the great, green, greasy one itself...along with, you guessed it, fermented grain-based beverage), it has evolved into coronary thrombosis in a pitta bread. The meat is traditionally meant to be lamb, however I'm sure that the appearance of a new 'bab van in my local area and the increase in posters announcing the sudden disappearance of a number of a number of household pets (predominantly feline) are not unconnected events. The good old doner doesn't need to be fried; it has lard at its core. Inspection of the discarded paper wrapper the following morning is damning testament to the copious quantity of yellow grease which seems to make up at least 80% of the contents. Quite why this 'delicacy' suddenly seems to be an indispensable commodity when drunk is a mystery. Anyone got any ideas?

Your dead right!

Fish and chips don't normally count as post pub snacks round here as the chip shops seem to shut early.

So its the dead sheep sandwich, or the indian, Chinese, Thai takeaway after a few pints.

One of the great attractions of the kebab is the chilli sauce, which 'bab van proprietors have graded, depending on how drunk the kebabeer is. Grades vary from 'mild sauce which genuinely adds a piquant taste' for 1-3 pint punters, thru 'searingly, insanely hot' for 5-7 pint punters, culminating in the 'antimatter that will annihilate mouth on contact' sauce reserved for the truly incoherent.

Requesting said chilli sauce, is of course simple. Simply reply either "Yes", "No", or "What?" when asked "doyouwannachillisosswizzat?" by the babmeister. The sauce, along with the obligatory green alien tentacle that it comes with will be applied to your kebab.

Presumably this is a game played by people who have to work at 2am on a Saturday night (or Sunday morning for pedants). Along the lines of "apply a sauce that is hot enough to make the customer choke, but not so hot that he/she complains". I probably would.

If you don't believe me, try ordering kebabs in different states of drunkenness. If you are really sharp, you will notice the DIFFERENT BOTTLES used to dispense it. I kid you not.

How are you going to complain when the pangalatic chilli sauce has just dissolved your throat.

By the way, if you're calling it doner kebap, then whoever started them up there was Turkish. If you call them shawarma, then the person who started it up was Arabic (of some flavour or other), possibly via France. Just some random trivia. I don't know what shawarma means, but doner means "it turns", referring to the spit of fatty pieces of "meat" (honestly, in Turkey they always say 'meat' instead of beef or mutton... implying some sort of combo).

Here in Montreal we call it shawarma, and they tend to be run by Lebanese people. But be careful... I normally love asking for hot sauce because they usually use tabasco sauce which isn't very. If you ask at certain places, they'll give you their own special brew... I got the runs from the last time I tried that. Heck, I don't go to that particular merchant at all anymore.