Interesting Links for 15-02-2020

[andrewducker]

A couple of clicks in a bank's spreadsheet caused the biggest fluctuation in Britain's trade figures in modern history.

(tags:gold UK trade weird )

What's going on with geothermal wells?

(tags:electricity energy earth heat )

An Inflammation of Place (the historical diagnosis of NewYorkitis)

(tags:newyork disease cities stress )

Don't aim for passion, be *curious*

(tags:advice passion )

Moving home can affect your children's health and education

(tags:homes children mentalhealth Education )

Some tips on writing British characters

(tags:UK society behaviour )

Flow-Charts of Programming Language Constructs

(tags:programming visualisation )

Dentists threatened by face-mask shortage because of coronavirus

(tags:teeth virus disease Doom )

There and Snack Again: How to eat everything in Lord of the Rings

(tags:lotr food )

How real is "grade inflation"?

(tags:education uk )

Comments

[andrewducker]

1) Pretty much. And it's not used as a modern name so people aren't going to get used to it. They also fall about laughing if you use "cock" to refer to a male chicken. Genitals are clearly hilarious.
2) In the States you seem to call this "shwarma". Which I hadn't heard of until it was mentioned in The Avengers.

[dewline]

In my Canadian experience, kebab dishes are a different thing from shawarma, though you can buy both at the same restaurants.

[calimac]

We have shwarma, but that's a different thing from what I had in England called a kebab. Shwarma is shaved meat on a plate with side dishes. The kebab I had was chunks of meat (not shavings, chunks) and the sides (lettuce, tomato, onion, dressing, etc) all stuffed into a pita-bread pocket. In the US, anything stuffed into a pita-bread pocket is a pita-bread sandwich.

[alithea]

A kebab from a kebab shop in the UK is meat shaved off a big chunk cooked on a skewer and usually served in a pitta bread. Homemade kebabs are the meat or veg cooked on domestic sized skewers rather than a giant one turning in an industrial oven.

[calimac]

What I had was from a kebab van, rather than a shop - I'd been led to understand that such vans were ubiquitous, though I rarely saw one - and the meat was chunks, not the shavings from a big skewer that characterize shawarma in the US, and in any case US shawarma is served on a plate with the pita bread and other ingredients on the side.

[andrewducker]

Yes, sorry. When most people in the UK they are referring to a "Doner Kebab", which is the shaved meat thing (served in a Pita pocket), but it is _absolutely_ appropriate to also be referring to a shish kebab, which (as you say) is the chunk of "meat on skewers".

Meanwhile I've been confused by the description I've seen online of Shawarma. Clearly it's the meat bit, and putting it in pita makes it a "Pita Bread Sandwich" in the USA.

I think I've learned something!

[calimac]

Now that's interesting, because I once went into a small counter-service hot-food shop that had two likely things on the posted menu, a "lamb kebab" and a "lamb doner". I made the mistake of saying, "I know what a kebab is, what's a doner?" and despite my repeated attempts at rephrasing, the staff embarked more and more desperately to explain to me what lamb was, even to the extent of running around waggling their fingers over their heads and going, "baa! baa!"

I eventually gave up and left without buying anything. This was about five years ago in Bournemouth or some such miserable place.

Just to be clear, I should emphasize that a pita-bread sandwich is anything in a pita-bread pocket, not specifically what the UK calls a kebab. I suppose if it were served that way, the menu would list the contents as it would for a shawarma plate, and add something like "served to-go [American for takeaway] in pita-bread." Normally, though, it'd be up to the diner whether they'd want to stuff the meal inside the pita-bread that comes with. Shawarma plates often come with rice, and that probably wouldn't fit, and would fall out if you tried.

[ninetydegrees]

To add to the confusion, we call a fast-food-like döner kebab with meat shavings, French fries, sauce and accompaniments stuffed in a pita "a greek" in France... Don't know if it's because of the pita. To most people this is a synonym for "a kebab". Meat on skewers usually isn't called a kebab because we use "brochette" instead, but it may be used in proper restaurants serving all types of kebabs.

[andrewducker]

That makes sense. Sadly in the UK such things have mostly become a low-end takeaway food, rather than something you'd sit in to eat, and changing that reputation would be tricky.

(A lot of foreign food types are now changing in the UK, as more authentic versions are being sold, rather than the original bastardised version produced for 70s British taste buds.)