A Tale of Two Shishkabobs

I had a good lesson today ordering a shishka-bob from a street vendor. Actually two shishka-bobs from two vendors.

Usually I buy a shishka bob from a vendor on 23^rd Street. He broils large chunks of skewered chicken on a charcoal grill, takes his time, pressing the meat with a hand press so that it gets a savory sear and is cooked throughout. When the meat is done he puts the skewer on a small hotdog bun and hands it to you wrapped in a sheet of foil. He does not bother to remove the stick. This you must do for yourself without letting any of the chunks fall out of their white doughy bed.

While I enjoy the vendor’s charbroiled chicken shishka-bobs, there is something in me that wants something more, a bit of finesse, a nice presentation for the meat. This explains why I tried a shishka-bob from another cart, the one parked downstairs in front of the building where I work. It is operated by two elderly foreign people. They have a metal sheet griddle on which they heat hotdogs and shishka-bobs. However, before you scrutinize their techniques, you cannot fail to be won over by their marketing skills. They advertise real sandwiches on hero or pita. I walked by their stand, as I usually do, without stopping. But then I paused and thought: this is a better value than my usual vendor. I can have skewered chicken bits on a pita, maybe with vegetables and sauce. So I retraced my steps back to their cart to give their product a try.

These vendors immediately demonstrated their sensitivity to consumer preferences by removing the meat from the skewer before they reheated it on the griddle. They proceeded to chop the chicken into small strips and cubes. They asked if I wanted onions, which I declined. Just hot sauce for me. They threw the pita on the fire to make it warm, piled on shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes, squirted on red sauce and white sauce, just the way the halal vendors do on Broadway in the 20s. They finished by wrapping my sandwich tightly in two sheets of foil and stuffed the whole production in a small paper bag.

But despite the scrupulous precision of their packaging, I should have known that the result would not taste like the halal sandwiches of the 20s and 30s because these vendors were sautéing the chicken on a griddle occupied by hot dogs and who knew what else? Sure enough, the moment I bit into the sandwich, I realized that there was nothing authentic or tasty about this street food. The white sauce was diluted , watery mayonnaise. The meat had an offputting, ambiguous fried flavor. I hate to waste food but I tossed half of this sandwich and expelled the sour taste in my mouth with the righteous, unaffected shishka-bob of my usual street vendor. He handed me my chicken skewer without a bun and when I protested, he apologized. “Oh, somebody told me no bun…” When I first sampled his primitive sandwich I also wondered about the bun and if it was necessary, but now I see it as part of the whole presentation, quirky as it is, and the vendor's character, and I treasure both. When I left his stand yesterday, I raised the sandwich as if to salute and said, ”Good!” to show my appreciation.

I learned several things from this lunch comparison. For one, that it is possible to know what is good through intuition and sensory perception although just how good may not be apparent except by comparison to what is bad.

I felt sorry for the poor technical students who are trapped into eating that vendor’s food and do not know how bad it is. Then I wondered if they are unaware of its poor quality. It is certainly possible to be so habituated to something that you are unaware of its quality in relation to other things. People go through life thinking love is brutal, for instance. But if people tend to accept what they are accustomed to, how can it be explained that people who have been used to abuse, are aware that they have been abused, and seek a better relationship? How do people who have been used to menial labor determine that they want something better for themselves and go about getting it?

Some people must have an innate faculty that perceives quality, good and evil, etc. and is able to transcend habit and custom.

This tale of two shishka-bobs also raised an old but intriguing cognitive question about the producer’s conception of quality. The two vendors downstairs believe that quality lies in the appearance of the meat and the packaging of the sandwich, and ignore taste as a criterion for the quality of the sandwich—a puzzling omission, considering the nature of their business. When these vendors made their pilgrimage to the center of the halal sandwich universe in the W 20s, to analyze the quality of a successful sandwich, they only factored in the components and their appearance. They had doubtless observed the popularity of the Halal vendors and sought to emulate their success by imitating their product in every respect but the most important one—how to season and prepare the food, and how it should taste. This was probably because this was all the information they could gather simply with their eyes. Of course, their culinary ignorance is understandable if not forgivable. The Halal vendors are unlikely to give away their recipes.

Meanwhile, the charbroiling shishka-bob vendor-in-the-rough is taste-centric. He believes that quality lies exclusively in the meat and its preparation, and ignores all other aspects of his product as superfluous. He has an excellent instinct for quality in food and how to maintain it. He knows well enough, for instance, to boil his hot dogs rather than mix meats on his grill. Yet even if his heart is in the right place, his eyes are blind to how his product appears to those in the public uninitiated to its taste. He inserts a long skewer of meat in a short bun, exposing his customer to the danger of choking on the stick or poking an eye. Even so, his product has an excellent taste, which is the quality of food that matters most. I only wish that he would learn what the inferior vendors already know—that we taste with our mouths but often choose with our eyes. He would be more successful. On the other hand, maybe the inadequacy of his packaging is part of what makes him so good because it conveys his fine character and appropriate priorities. With his limited time and resources, he shows what he values most. And that is why I wanted him to give me the bun.