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| my Turkish breakfast |
This is my breakfast day in, day out, winter, summer, I love it. I never skip it. The colours, the textures, the tastes appeal to me every time. I also like the fact it's so healthy. In comparison, cereals leave me cold.
Breakfast really is my favourite meal. I think Turkish breakfast beats any other breakfasts hands-down although I make a concession to scrambled eggs when I'm in England. And even though I love Turkish çay, I admit that I have to have my cup of Yorkshire with milk in the morning in order to get me going.
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| Sunday breakfast with Ali and Susan |
Traditionally a Turkish breakfast includes white cheese/beyaz peynir and olives/zeytin as well as cut up tomatoes and cucumbers. If I am going to stay anywhere for a long time, I'm so picky I take cheese and black olives with me. As far as I am concerned, only Turkish olives will do. We lived in Tokyo for a time and even though the selection was vast in the international supermarket National Azabu, I went through Spanish, Italian, Greek, you name it, and was always disappointed. It was the same with olive oil.
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| Sunday breakfast includes an egg |
If I wasn't so careful about calories, I would keep my olives in olive oil but I just have them plain. I have lovely dried thyme/kekik which I usually get from my neighbour Leyla in Assos who picks it and dries it. I crush it between my fingers and sprinkle it lavishly over everything. Oh the smell! It's so evocative. Flaked red pepper/kırmızı biber is another must for both the cheese and olives.
At the weekend when the weather is fine, all the little cafes along the Bosphorus here in Istanbul fill up rapidly as people relax with their friends and enjoy having their breakfasts outdoors reading the papers. It's a very typical Sunday morning thing to do here.
Just look at this picture of the ultimate Turkish breakfast served at a place called Saklı Vadi or Hidden Valley, halfway between Selçuk and Şirince tucked amongst the olive trees down towards İzmir.
I have a friend, Frances (she of the fabulous quinces) who organizes Turkish textile tours and this is one of her favourite stops. She says there are usually 18-20 different items on the breakfast table according to season. The last time she was there, she tasted an 'extraordinary walnut jam made with the green shells whole before hardening'. The honey, cheese and salad items are all local and eating them either outside in the garden or in front of an enormous open logfire all adds to the pleasure.
So you can see my breakfast is simple compared to this feast! You certainly can't be in a hurry to savour a breakfast like this.
Lovely! I do understand about certain foods not being available, and nothing quite does it.
ReplyDeleteHi Rosaria, yes, it's funny, isn't it, how there are some things we just have to have in order to feel happy!
ReplyDeleteAnd those tomatoes even look ripe and delicious - here we'll have to wait until next June to get edible one!
ReplyDeleteHi Barbara, how interesting! these tomatoes are of course greenhouse grown but I have to admit they do have flavour. I don't really care for the bigger ones as they are just too uniform and perfect and quite frankly, tasteless.
ReplyDeleteWow - I LOVE the look of that breakfast. While I like good muesli in the morning (lots of fruit, nuts and seeds, covered in natural yoghurt), I adore a selection of cheeses, vegetables and other savoury goodies. Your spread looks beautiful.
ReplyDeleteHi Londoneats! I'm so glad you like this! I have just had a look at your blog and love what you have to say about oats and oatcakes. And then I noticed that you have Dan Leperd on the side there which is a coincidence as I have only just discovered him myself and mentioned him in my blog today! So I will go back to your blog ....
ReplyDeleteDo come by again,
claudia
hi! i love this breakfast and have copied down the pepper name and the cheese and will see if i can find them here. it might be difficult. i would mush prefer this to cereal any day! what kind of bread is it that i see? joyce
ReplyDeletei am so lame! i could not wait to try this so i just made up my own version of this with what i have on hand. i know it is not even close to yours. the only bread i had was the naan i just made. i used cucumbers but had only my oven roasted tomatoes so i used them. i had french thyme and i added some sea salt and a bit of balsamic vinegar. the only cheese i had that was even remotely close was feta and fresh mozzarella and i mixed them in with the vegetables. tomorrow i will seek out turkish ingredients so this will have to hold me over until then. and i must find the turkish olives! i am using kalamata today! thank you so much for the inspiration! i also need to research turkish bread!
ReplyDeletethis is a lovely breakfast, we normally have a bigger breakfast on the weekend, eggs , toast, tomatoes, bacon, on week days its more likely muffins or cereal,, we need to try to eat more like you, they say breakfast is the most important meal after all,
ReplyDeleteHi Laurie! thanks for coming by my blog! A good fry up also has its charms :) but you know what, after living here so long, I now find that just too fatty and too much. This breakfast is great but the tomatoes and cucumbers have to be tasty. Also the white cheese has to be just right - I don't like all types.
ReplyDeleteIt looks so delicious.
ReplyDeleteI love turkish breakfast.
You are SO lucky to be there, I love traveling and I always wanted to visit Turkey as everything in there looks amazing, the sea, the sky, the food, the authentic places, I just dream of it! I know as well that their breakfast is very rich, that's why women there have a very nice skin and hair, I guess healthy food has to do with it, it keeps you full for the whole morning too... I went to Algiers two years ago, the olive oil and olives in general were delicious and mainly organic! Even the fruits and vegetables had a complete taste from the ones we have here in the UK, I could smell them in the food market meters away :)
ReplyDeleteHello EarnMonitor! Great comment and yes you are right: I AM indeed lucky to be here although I probably didn't always appreciate it.I think you should come and see for yourself what it is all about! Definitely the fruit and veg is different and dare I say it, much better than in the UK! It is all so FRESH!
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