I’ve decided to break up the Turkish Food rundown into at least three feasts for your eyes. I may also do one on snacks and deserts, but we’ll have to get snacking.
Anyway, it’s time for breakfast…
This is what we ate each morning in Istanbul, in the rooftop terrace of the Second Home Hostel. Tomato, cucumber, egg, and bread; the typical Turkish breakfast. That's instant coffee, by the way, which is also the norm. It's known by the brand name, Nescafe, and can be outrageously expensive sometimes.
It’s normal at most hotels, pensions, and hostels to have breakfast included in the room price. Occasionally, we’ve had to pay extra, and have found breakfast can range from about 5TL (Turkish Lira) to 10TL, depending on the spread. Quality is fairly consistent, and breakfast is marked by fresh fruit and veggies, accompanied by a basket of thickly sliced white bread and assorted spreads (honey, jam, butter, cheese). Eggs are normal, but meat is relatively rare, and can be anything from baloney to boar tongue…
Cheese, an egg, orange, and the requisite tomatoes and cucumber. Delicious!This one had fried weiners, slabs of white goat cheese, eggs and tomatoes. And of course, a basket of bread.The full spread at the Ecer Pansiyon in Guzelcamli. (pronounced "Guz-el-cham-luh"). We sampled a variety of homemade jams, honey, and a few more unique treats, such as…Fresh boar's tongue! Our friendly pansiyon owner in "Guzelchamluh," Nacep, fed us this rare delicacy. Thinly sliced, it tasted of roast beef and was pretty good as long as you didn't look too hard at the nubby little tastebuds lining the outside. EXTREME CLOSEUP! (for shock value, mostly)Unfortunately, I didn't write the name of this one down, but it was homemade avacado spread on brown bread topped with an olive. It was graciously created by the father of our pansiyon owner to accompany breakfast. That's a type of baloney you see in the bottom-right.I have become a huge sucker for honey on my bread at breakfast time, and none has been better than this stuff. Harvested straight from the beehives in the yard of the Ecer Pansiyon, this waxy honeycomb was dee-licious!Turkish Coffee. It's thick and strong, but brewed with sugar and quite tasty. The trick is to know exactly when to stop drinking it, as the bottom of the cup is thick with bitter sludge that will line your mouth and coat your teeth. This is what we are eating each morning here in Olympos. The oranges come from about 30 feet away in theirorchard and are more fresh and sweet than any orange I've ever eaten. The insides have red streaks like blood oranges but they are incredibly sweet. The olives are also typical at breakfast time, and the ones here are fantastic. Salty, but loaded with flavour. Meral, the proprietor, sprinkles paprika on the fried eggs. It's not hard to get up when you know you'll have this to look forward to.
[…] you might want to checkÂout some of our posts about food in Morocco, Iran, Cambodia, Turkey,  Turkish breakÂfasts, Turkish food at Dilek National Park,  Thailand cuisine and wonÂderÂful Italian cooking. Chris […]
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