Although its origins are middle-eastern, Donner Kebabs are particularly popular in Europe. As with the Arabic "Shawama", it's a form of fast food made from meat rosted on a skewer.

In case you have never seen a kebab shop – you can recognise it by the huge lump ground meat that roasts as it rotates. As the meat cooks, the chef shaves it off into pita or naan bread. Normally raw vegetables like onion, cabbage, tomatoes and mild chilli peppers are added to pad it out. In England, donner kebabs are usually garnished with a spicy chilli or mint sauce.

The cylinders of ground meat are often joking referred to as "elephant's legs". That's not just a joke about the size of the raw kebab, but about the origin of the meat.

Most donner kebabs in the UK make for poor eating. The quality of the meat tends to be dubious – ground meat can often contain all sorts of mechanically reclaimed animal protein. If the meat has not all been sold by closing time, many kebab shops keep it for the next day. Cooling and heating the meat repeatedly is bad food hygiene.

It's not all bad news. As people develop a taste for better food, the chicken donner and the Shawama kebab are becoming more popular. In a few years I would hope that all but the worst kebab shops have upgraded.

You might also read about some other kebab shop classics like the Kofte Kebab or the Shish Kebab.

Turkish fast food, comparable to Greek gyros. "Döner Kebap" is actually Turkish for "spinning roast".

As you might expect for fast food, usually sold at stands on the street for around 3 euros. Consists of little bits of roasted meat cut from a spit, with salad, tomatoes, onion and sauce (usually with lots of garlic) in a white bread or in a rolled up pitta bread. As Muslims may not eat pork, the meat is usually turkey, or lamb. The details may vary though, and are usually quite negotiable, eg you can also get a vegetarian one with cheese and stuff.

As the legend goes, the Döner Kebab was actually invented in Berlin in 1971 (there's a large Turkish commune there in Kreuzberg) as the fast food version of a traditional Turkish dish. In colloquial German it's called a Döner - it'd be more correct to call it a Kebab but that's somehow less common. Some newspaper claimed that the Döner nowadays is the most popular fast food in Germany. What I can say for sure it that every half-decent town there has at least 2 "Dönerbuden". I can recommend the "Kapadokya" at Martin-Luther-Platz in Erlangen! My experience with Döner in other countries is unfortunately a bit limited.