Unlike many European countries in Turkey salty dishes are preferred as the first bites of the day. Cheese is the one main ingredients of breakfast tables along with olives, tomato, cucumber, honey or marmalade or jam, butter, bread and tea.
Since Turkey has been affected by the demanding life conditions, we tend to skip breakfast at home with our family. We slide over the big breakfast table and have a bite of simit, poğaça or a toast with cheese accompanied with Turkish tea either at the office or on the go. Poğaça is a salty pastry with a variety of cheese, olives, mincemeat, potatoes.
But this general picture of the big cities change when we travel through geography and culture. A very well-known breakfast item is ciğer kebap in Adana, which is lamb liver, wrapped in a dürüm eaten very early around 5-6am in the morning. Where in Şanlıurfa isot (pepper) and pide with tea are preferred for the morning bites. Isot is cooked in neighborhood bakeries, that fiercely hot peppers are eaten with the hot pides right out of the oven. In Bitlis, büryan is breakfast itself, which is kid cooked in specially built underground tandoori for around 6 hours during night and ready to be served around 5-6am till run out around 10-11am. The delicacy is eaten with onions, green peppers, pide and tomatoes. In Anatolia, in villages there is still the social gathering around breakfast tables, where tables are big round trays, sini, and you sit cross-legged around it, eating your soup with tandır bread…
What’s Cooking Series – Breakfast