SBS’s New Documentary About Aussie Kebab Shops Is The Most ‘Strayan TV Show To Ever ‘Straya
The triumph of multicultural Australia is a mixed kebab with the lot.
There is no more Australian activity than capping off a big night with a beautiful, chaotic assortment of greasy rotisserie meat and ill-defined salad bits crammed into a pita roll. From the main streets of our biggest cities to the smallest country towns to lonely freeway truck-stops, kebab stands have well and truly woven themselves into the Australian fabric, one mixed kebab with the lot at a time.
They’re so ubiquitous, so self-evidently part of the Australian psyche, that they’ve largely slipped under the radar. The kebab is sadly underappreciated in modern Australian culture, even as we universally recognise its centrality in all our lives. Even anti-halal nutjobs are curiously quiet about kebab shops, presumably because they secretly concede Australians will never choose freako racism over our newest staple food.
Which is why an upcoming SBS documentary about the humble kebab is going to prove so valuable. SBS installed CCTV cameras in two of Australia’s busiest kebab shops — one in trendy Collingwood, one on Sydney’s George Street, that iconic strip of CBD affectionately known as “the arse end of existence” — and recorded the comings and goings of staff and customers over a busy month before Christmas. The result is a fascinating, revealing and touching insight not only into the daily lives of the people who feed Australia when the sun goes down, but Australia itself,
The best and worst of this country is on display — drunken late-night revellers, racist dickheads, disparate cultures colliding and connecting, moments of genuine warmth and empathy, expressions of solidarity and common humanity. All to the tune of a bloke solemnly reciting the sauce options for the umpteenth time: “tomato barbecue chilli garlic humus sweet chilli mayonnaise sour cream satay tandoori mustard homemade chilli”.
The genius of multicultural Australia is a foil-wrapped kebab and a pile of oily dolmades. It’s high time we celebrated that fact.
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Kebab Kings premieres Wednesday November 25, 8.30pm on SBS.