Turgut Tünay, son of a kebab shop owner, sold his first canned kebab six months ago, and he now produces 300 pieces a month. The contents have to be warmed up in a water bath and fried – or you can put the can in the microwave. The canned doner kebab is a family project, Tünay’s wife is the manager, and his children also help out.
SZ: Mr. Tünay, you were trained in the top kitchen at Schloss Berg in Saarland, and later became head chef in a four-star hotel. How did you come up with the idea of making a canned kebab?
Turgut Tunay: My father makes the tastiest doner kebab I know, and I can’t get it anywhere. A few years ago we tried freezing doner kebabs. We made about five kilos, but it didn’t taste good.
Ah, indeed.
Then I thought to myself, it should actually be canned – you just have to boil it down properly. We then bought a large pressure cooker and started preserving kebabs in my parents-in-law’s basement, back then still in jars. It’s a process that relies on pressurized steam, and you have to vent it every now and then. The first time the whole basement was under steam, the laundry room, the party room, the workshop.
At least the effort has now paid off.
In the beginning we only produced for ourselves, but then the idea of selling it came to us. At some point we therefore bought a can sealing machine.
What does your father think of all this?
At first he didn’t believe it. At one point my sister flew to Turkey where he lives and took some cans with her. He liked it very much.
Really?
Yes, it’s his recipe, from 1965. He is also mentioned, the tin says: “Ismail’s Döner Kebab”. He first helped out at Iskender, the world’s first kebab restaurant. Then he switched to a hotel, where at some point his chef said: We also want to include kebabs in the program. My father, at 17, cheekily said: I can do it. The chef: You have no idea. Yes, he said, I really can. Then they made doner kebabs.
On your website you write that your parents ran the first doner kebab shop in Saarland.
My parents moved to Germany in the early seventies, professionally, my father was a boxer. A few years later they started selling doner kebabs.
How did Saarland react to Turkish doner kebabs back then?
My father always said people didn’t even know what that was. They asked: Is that cheese?
cheese, uh Did they like it then?
Yes very good! I can remember when I was little, at some point my father said to me: That’s enough, we have to take a break now. Get in line and tell people to leave.
It is said that compared to the Turkish doner kebab, the German example is not the real thing. What is the worst thing about the German doner kebab?
I don’t want to put my colleagues down, everyone has to decide for themselves. For me it is important that the kebab is as clean as possible. We have no extenders, no flavor enhancers, the meat comes from a small farm in the region.
Doesn’t quite fit the image of canned food…
I wasn’t entirely convinced of the product itself at first. Before we sold the canned doner kebab, we gave it to 100 people to try. There were also friends among them, very good friends who said: They don’t like it at all. And some said: Wow, cool.
How much is your canned doner kebab?
9.45 euros if you order it online.
That’s more than a fresh doner kebab.
Hm, that’s always a question of calculation. If you eat a big doner kebab, there’s a lot of vegetables, a lot of bread. The meat content is 100 to 120 grams. With us it is 165 grams.
Do you sometimes get a fresh doner kebab somewhere else?
nope I have my kebab. Why should I try others now?
More episodes of the SZ series “A call to …” can be found here.