Turkey 1 : Turkish Kahvaltı (Breakfast)

What do Turkish typically eat for breakfast or Kahvalti? Bread (Ekmek), hard boiled egg, butter, block of cheese, cream, jam or honey, black olives, slices of fresh cucumber, tomatoes, and glasses of sweetened black cay (tea). I enjoyed this breakfast throughout my journey in Turkey. However, there are some changes as I traveled from Istanbul towards the East through Central Anatolia to North Eastern then to South Eastern Anatolia.

When I stayed at pension in Barhal village in Kackar mountains area, similar breakfast is served, but no more packed honey, but fresh village honey and cream that make it different. In Van, the village honey are sold in a way as shown in this photo, and therefore you can imagine how fresh the honey is without any additives or preservatives.

As I travel further east, I passed through high mountain pass, and landed at a plateau. This area is dominated by shepherd families, when cow and goat are the major livestock. And eventually cheese, butter, yogurt and any other dairy products become the major production either in family basis or larger scale basis. Kars, a Little Russian town located near Armenia border is famous for its cheese trading. You can see shops selling only cheese and nothing else. All cheese blocks come with trademark or logo, and in different size, shape and type. A lot of cheese sold in the shops are even fermented, and turn into black color (I think better quality if not mistaken, as it fermented for longer period). Taken Kars cheese during breakfast, and yummy! [Took some photos of that, but sad to say that the files are all corrupted due to computer virus.]

And as I go further south towards Van located in South Eastern Anatolia, there is one speciality which must give it a try. Still it is cheese, but it is mixed with tangy herbs as shown in this photo. Sometimes they called this cheese as grass cheese as well. In Van, there are two famous outlets for breakfast located side by side around the main street. I was there one morning to try out this special cheese, and both the cheese and village honey taste good. Photo shows Otlu Peynir (Cheese with Tangy herbs) a speciality in Van.

French bread is the common type of bread throughout Turkey, either for breakfast, lunch or dinner. However as I travel into areas with more Kurdish and Arabic, type of bread preferred by the local also changed from French bread into Kurdish bread or Naan. Kurdish bread is similar to Naan bread we have in Malaysia and often serve hot from oven. It is eaten during breakfast, lunch and dinner as the main source of carbohydrate.

It is very interesting to observe changes as such, besides changes in landscape, culture, ethnic group, what or how they wear, language, etc...even though I am still traveling within the same country.

P/S : So far, China is another country which I find so interesting, as each province has its own uniqueness in various aspects.