Turkish Breakfast

Depending on whether it is a week day or not, Turkish breakfast shows some differences. If we consider a standard Turkish breakfast on a week day, it usually consists of bread, butter, jam or honey, olives, feta cheese, tomotoes, cucumbers, probably some eggs and mostly a cup of tea instead of coffee.

For the weekends, preparation of the breakfast table is relatively a big job. Family gathering around a breakfast table is pretty important for many Turkish family, especially for the mom. Having a good breakfast and nice chat with your parents/kids/spouse is valuable. Unlike weekdays, you dont have to rush to catch the school bus or stressed out about going to your job on time. So everyone has more time and more enthusiastic to sit on a dining table.

The variety of food usually increases for the weekend breakfast. Other than the items that I have counted above, there are probably some pastries (we call them "borek") filled with cheese or meat or potatoes. Also there may be Sucuk (Turkish style sausages seasoned with some species and garlic) with scrambled eggs. There is generally more than one type of cheese and again more than one type of olives and jams. It might seem weird but for some families eating french fries for the breakfast with a tomoto-garlic-pepper sauce on top is normal. (For example, for me, I am still missing my mom's breakfast french-fries.. so delicious!). Tahini and grape molases mixture is also one of my favorites. Another interesting thing is that we sometime have soup for the breakfast, especially if it is a winter morning. If you have never tried, I suggest you to do it. You might like it. Traditional "tarhana soup" can be a good example here.

I would like to mention another Turkish breakfast specialty here: It is called "menemen" and it consists of roasted tomatoes, green peppers, onions and eggs. I know some people are crazy for it.

Menemen:

Since I am living in Arizona, I want to say that I was surprised with the breakfasts here. I realized that each culture has its own lifestyle. Here, people are used to eat cereal with milk or peanut butter and jam on a piece of bread or sometimes just coffee and doughnut (or bagel) for breakfast. Isn't that interesting?

Whenever I am inviting my friends from other cultures for a Turkish breakfast to my home, they are also surprised by seeing french fries, or sausages on the table. But I feel and I hope that they are enjoying it very much.

The images are taken from:

http://www.egitimaileforum.com/forums/sabah-kahvaltisi-t7910.html?p=232142
http://bastav.com/yemek2.htm