BERLIN: A spicy row has erupted between Turkiye and Germany over what constitutes a doner kebab, with Berlin objecting to a Turkish push for protected status for the iconic snack.
The humble doner, made with thinly sliced meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, has its origins in Turkiye but is also beloved in Germany after being introduced there by Turkish migrants.
In April, the International Doner Federation (Udofed), based in Turkiye, filed an application to the European Commission to grant the doner kebab Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) status.
From the exact meat and spices to the thickness of the knife used to slice the meat, Udofed wants the definition of the doner to adhere to a strict list of criteria.
If successful, the application would bar businesses in the European Union from using the name doner kebab unless it met the criteria, giving it the same protected status as Italy’s bufala mozzarella or Spain’s Serrano ham.
In its application, Udofed hails the doner’s origins during the Ottoman Empire, citing a recipe found in manuscripts dating from 1546.
But that has sparked an uproar in Germany, where the doner has become an emblem of the country’s large Turkish community, descended from “guest workers” invited under a massive economic program in the 1960s and 70s.
The German capital even claims the doner kebab to be “a Berlin invention.”
“It happened in Berlin: Legend has it, Kadir Nurman was the first to put the meat in flatbread in 1972 and invented the version of doner that is so beloved in Germany,” according to the city’s website.
“The doner belongs to Germany. Everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves how it is prepared and eaten here. There is no need for any guidelines from Ankara,” said Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir, whose parents migrated from Turkiye.
Germany’s agriculture ministry viewed Turkiye’s application “with astonishment,” a spokesman said.
If this “imprecise” and “contradictory” proposal is accepted by the commission, “the economic consequences for the German gastronomic sector would be enormous,” the spokesman said.
The DEHOGA hotel and catering union also warned of a “lack of clarity and transparency,” “difficulties with legal definitions” and “a raft of future disputes.”
The German government lodged an objection to the Turkish application just ahead of the European deadline on Wednesday.
In Berlin, where the doner has long surpassed the sausage as the convenience snack of choice, Birol Yagci is concerned that the Turkish version only allows beef, lamb or chicken.
“Here it’s different. The traditional recipe is made with veal,” the chef at a Turkish restaurant in the city’s Kreuzberg district said.
Behind him, two columns of meat glisten on their spits, one ironically made from turkey — the bird — which would also not be allowed under the new definition.
“People eat doners all over the world. Turkiye can’t just dictate to others what they should do,” said the 50-year-old.
“My customers won’t want to eat lamb. It has a very particular taste,” said Arif Keles, 39, owner of a doner kiosk, whose customers include Germany’s national football team.
Keles too said he would sooner charge the name of his products than alter his recipes.
“My customers know what they’re eating, so as long as the quality is there it doesn’t matter what you call it,” he said.
Germany accounts for two-thirds of doner kebab sales in Europe with the market worth 2.4 billion euros ($2.6 billion) a year, according to the Association of Doner Manufacturers in Europe (ATDID).
In April, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier even took Keles with him on a visit to Turkiye as a symbol of the close ties between the two countries.
Keles arrived to serve his wares at an official reception armed with a huge spit of veal, much to the “curiosity” of his guests.
“In Turkiye, doner is eaten on a plate. I served it Berlin-style, on bread with sauce, and they loved it,” said the chef, whose grandfather emigrated from Turkiye to Germany.
But the European Commission must now decide whether doner diversity will win the day, according to the institution’s agriculture spokesman Olof Gill.
If the objection to the Turkish application is found to be admissible, the two parties will have a maximum of six months to reach a compromise, he said.

NICOSIA: Cyprus on Monday put on display artifacts — some of them thousands of years old — that were returned after a Turkish art dealer looted them from the ethnically divided island nation decades ago.
Aydin Dikmen took the artifacts from the country’s breakaway north in the years after Cyprus’ split in 1974, when Turkiye invaded following a coup mounted by supporters of union with Greece. The antiquities were kept in Germany after authorities there seized them in 1997, and protracted legal battles secured their repatriation in three batches, the last one this year.
Addressing the unveiling ceremony at Cyprus’ archaeological museum, President Nikos Christodoulides said the destruction of a country’s cultural heritage as evidenced in recent conflicts becomes a “deliberate campaign of cultural and religious cleansing that aims to eliminate identity.”
Among the 60 most recently returned artifacts put on display include jewelry from the Chalcolithic Period between 3500-1500 B.C. and Bronze Age bird-shaped idols.
Antiquities that Dikmen also looted but were returned years ago include 1,500-year-old mosaics of Saints Luke, Mark, Matthew and James. They are among the few examples of early Christian works to survive the Iconoclastic period in the 8th and 9th centuries when most such works were destroyed.
Cyprus’ authorities and the country’s Orthodox Church for decades have been hunting for the island’s looted antiquities and centuries-old relics from as many as 500 churches in open auctions and on the black market.
The museum’s antiquities curator, Eftychia Zachariou, told the ceremony that Cyprus in recent years has benefited from a shift in thinking among authorities in many countries who now opt to repatriate antiquities of dubious provenance.