"Doner kebab" translates literally from Turkish as "turned meat." The meat is slowly roasted on a vertical spit, then sliced off and stuffed into a triangular piece of toasted pita bread with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, garlic sauce and whatever else the vendor chooses to include. It makes a hearty meal and sells for about $3.

Versions of the doner are known outside Germany, but Turks scoff at them. They say that the meat used in gyros, for example, which are sold in some American cities, is not only sliced too thick but often made from pork, which disqualifies it as a legitimate expression of Turkish culture.

In Turkey itself, there is such a wide variety of cuisine that the doner has not been finely developed. While it is available in Turkish cities, it has never become the obsession there that it is here.

Germany is not known as a fad-oriented country, and the speed with which the doner kebab has spread throughout the land has fueled much reflection. The playwright Gaby Sikorski has written a highly successful satire called "The Last Doner," which begins with Parliament banning the food in 1999 on the ground that too many Germans are becoming addicted to it. The decision leads to "doner riots" and the emergence of a criminal underground to supply a desperate population.

"My first doner was an experience I will never forget," Ms. Sikorski recalled. "It was on a hot summer day, although of course it may also have been a chilly autumn evening. Anyway, a tomato slice fell onto my new blouse. I was able to throw away the blouse, but my love for doner has remained constant to this day, even though the tomatoes still fall out."

Some doner enthusiasts express their affection in almost erotic terms. "I love you, I honor you, I devour you," the actress Iris Wegner rhapsodized. "What remains is a trace of your scent on my clothing."

One of Berlin's most respected social scientists, Eberhard Seidel-Pielen, recently published a study called "How Doner Came to the Germans." Sitting under paintings of the Bosporus at Hasir, a Turkish restaurant where he considers the doner to be especially good, Mr. Seidel-Pielen explained the social implications of the recent boom.