This just might get me on MySpace...

The Kronos Gyros Woman has a profile on MySpace.


And she needs friends. Because, as you can see from looking at the corporate web site, she's been replaced by someone younger, and less 'ethnic' looking.


I think this is a travesty. Frankly, I appreciated having my processed gyro food stuffs advertised by a lovely lady who actually looks like she might be Greek. Considering that here in Chicago, you only see Kronos Gyros advertised in decidedly non-Greek pizza and burger joints, it just makes me feel better.

While we're talking about authenticity here, can I just say how unhappy I am with the concept of Chicken Gyros? This is just another tragic effort to make "ethnic" food that will sell to boring white people. Chicken gyros? Hey, I like chicken, and I like gyros, but I don't need them masquerading as each other. Chicken gyros seems to be the gyros option for people who don't like gyros. If that's you, then great. Go eat chicken. But hey would you want chicken pretending to be something you don't like? Why not try something else? Maybe...wait for it...Greek chicken???

Apparently, this isn't the first time that the corporate overlord has tried to mainstream their product. From the Kronos corporate web site, quoting an article from Crain's Chicago Business:

In 1975, Chris Tomaras founded Kronos to manufacture his own broiler, the Kronomatic. Until selling the company in 1994, he was his own marketing chief, picking point-of-sale materials from table tents to pita wrapping to get operators excited about the gyro. He also picked the first Kronos poster model, a blonde.

"The idea was to not have a Greek-looking girl, but an American girl," says Mr. Tomaras, 68. "And it worked. It worked by Americanizing the product."

Hah. Sure.

Racist.

I think this is the cheeky corn-fed American-looking girl that original Kronos owner Uncle Tomaras settled on for his advertising:

Boosted this photo from a very funny article at TODAY YOUR HAIR IS VERY NICE.
Go read it. It's funny.

It's a sad, but nothing lasts forever. Everything evolves. A new sandwich needs a new spokesmodel. My Gyros Woman wasn't the first, and she isn't the last, but in my opinion, she's the best. I'll take the Bronze Age Gyros Woman over the Modern Age knock-off, any old day.

For more gyros art, check out The Gyros Project, a labor of love featuring landmarks of the Chicago spindled-meat scene. Here's my favorite: Mmmm...I want Booby's.

And finally, I leave you with another choice tidbit from the Crain's article, which illustrates how steeped Chicago is in gyros history:

In the 1970s, some local entrepreneurs began innovating on the gyro (a word meaning "rotate" in Greek), then handmade in local Greek restaurants.

Among the first was Peter Parthenis Sr., an immigrant and University of Illinois engineering graduate who designed the Autodoner vertical broiler. He started mass-producing gyro meat in 1972 after seeing restaurateurs struggle to prepare it themselves.

"The first meat cone that we sent out of state was on a Greyhound bus," says Mr. Parthenis, 60.

Well. That explains why those buses smell that way.

Meat Cone?

That makes me feel a little dirty. And a little hungry.