Shredded Roasted Meat (Gyro Sandwiches)

The medieval Baghdadi cooks knew how to grill meat the rotisserie way, or as they called it kardhabaj. They skewered chunks of meat or whole chickens, suspended them horizontally over an open fire, and let them rotate until the meat grilled to succulence and almost fell off the bones. It was more like a picnic food where they enjoyed the sight of the revolving meat and the aromas it spread all around the place. The earliest recipes for preparing meat this way occur in al-Warraq’s ten