Beef and chicken glisten as they rotate slowly on vertical spits before they are carved off in razor-thin strips. Two cooks slide from a sizzling griddle to a warm toaster in a practiced dance. Mounds of fresh tomatoes, cabbage and red onions shine in a colorful tableau.
The scene at Kebap With Attitude in Berlin's trendy Mitte neighborhood is typical of any street-side stand or restaurant where cooks pile the ingredients into pita bread to create the city's beloved doner kebab.
But the snack's status could be in jeopardy if the European Commission approves a bid by Turkey to regulate what can legally take the doner kebab name.
In the balance is an industry that generates annual sales of roughly 2.3 billion euros (nearly $2.6 billion) in Germany alone, and 3.5 billion euros (nearly $3.9 billion) across Europe, according to the Berlin-based Association of Turkish Doner Producers in Europe.
"From the government to the streets, everyone is eating doner kebab," Deniz Buchholz, the owner of Kebap With Attitude, said as waiters ferried steaming orders from the kitchen to hungry lunchtime customers on a rainy Monday afternoon.
