It can be purchased quickly from street venders and consumed on-the-go. Though the recipes for and ingredients in shawarma differ from region to region, traditionally, the dish consists of meat, a sauce, and various toppings, which are all wrapped together in a piece of flatbread. The dish is often cooked outside, though concerns about the safety of outdoor cooking have led some countries to require that cooking be done indoors and under strict sanitary guidelines. Though shawarma is a dish found all over the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Europe, the word itself is an approximation of an Arabic word. In Arabic, shawarma is a verb that means, “to turn.” In other countries that have a shawarma-like dish, the word for the dish varies, but the meaning remains the same. The Greek dish gyros, the Turkish dish doner kebab, and the Armenian dish tarna all have names that are variations of the word for turning. The first place to have served shawarma was the Turkish city of Bursa. In Bursa, the dish was called by its Turkish name, doner kebab. It was invented in the 19th century and quickly gained popularity as it was adopted by nearby societies
