A favourite street snack in Berlin, Germany is the <em>Döner</em> kebab — sliced meat from a vertical rotisserie, served in bread with salad and sauce — found on street corners and around bustling U-Bahn stations. Now a staple of the German diet, it was introduced to West Berlin in the early 1970s by Turkish <em>Gastarbeiter</em> (guest workers), a multinational migrant workforce recruited to offset labour shortages during West Germany’s post-war economic miracle. The <em>Gastarbeiter</em> were meant to be temporary residents, but after the economic crisis of 1973 and subsequent recruitment ban, many <em>Gastarbeiter</em> chose not to leave Germany for fear of not being able to return.<br><br>Equally prominent in Berlin are Vietnamese restaurants and East Asian supermarkets. Although some of Berlin’s Vietnamese community arrived in West Berlin after fleeing the Vietnam War (1955-75), even prior to that, in the 1950s, the East German government had begun inviting Vietnamese students to receive their education in Germany.<sup>1</sup> Then, from the 1980s onwards, East Germany included Vietnam in its own migrant worker programme, which was similar to the West German <em>Gastarbeiter</em> scheme; <em>Vertragsarbeiter</em> (contract workers) were recruited from the communist Vietnamese state — in a move aimed not only at aiding its own economic growth, but also to support a fellow Eastern Bloc country. <br><br>Both communities experienced violence in the aftermath of reunification, including arson attacks on Turkish and Vietnamese homes carried out by neo-Nazis.<sup>2</sup> But, as an integral part of the city’s culinary landscape, Vietnamese and Turkish restaurants are a reminder of how the city’s political history has contributed to its contemporary cultural diversity.<br>