There is no better description for a traditional Turkish breakfast than the word limitless. In fact, I’ve even seen that very word on several menus when referring to the tea binge that everyone is expected to engage in during this all-important meal; it comes as no surprise to me that Turkey is the world’s largest consumer of tea.
I must make the distinction that (unfortunately) the following picture is not an accurate portrayal of my breakfast on an everyday basis, but is indeed representative of a Turkish breakfast in full glory mode.
For the benefit of readers unfamiliar with the contents this all-morning affair, I’ll do a quick inventory:
Omelette, fries (still a little confused about that one), french toast-esque concoction, sigara böreği (cigarette-shaped fried filo pastry filled with feta cheese inside), green and black olives, cucumber, tomatoes, honey, blackberry jam, various cheeses, kaymak (a creamy dairy product common in Central Asia, the Balkans, the Turkic regions, Iran, and Iraq), red pepper spread, normal bread, and of course, limitless tea.
Four out of the five of us NSLI-Y kids decided to go out and have breakfast together and channel our blossoming Turkish alter-egos, which in this case entailed hours of conversation while slowly but surely devouring the feast set before us. In our traditional fashion, our conversation made the mandatory Bernie Sanders pit stop, a detour into the realm of poetry, and an unexpected left turn to discuss our pipe dream of being invited to the G-20 summit in Antalya to meet Barack. It didn’t happen, but the fact that it even might have was enough to sate my excitement dose of the day.
I absolutely love the long-winded nature of a Turkish breakfast. The meal can extend to the fringes of the afternoon without ever hitting that wall of unendurable stuffed-ness that usually descends on people forty five minutes into Thanksgiving dinner. Our breakfast on this particular morning lasted a solid two hours, and we were still dipping away at the array of jams and honey; our waiter must have refilled our bread basket at least four times.
Fast forward two weeks later, and we found ourselves in the southwestern town of Milas for the weekend. In Milas, we all stayed with Turkish host families for a night, made friends at the local high school, had a dance party with the residents of the local mental disability residence, and celebrated one of our fellow German exchange student’s birthday at a cafe. My host sister for the night, Simge, was absolutely wonderful; we had a blast harmonizing to Hey Jude and staying up until 1AM to bake chocolate goodies which we devoured at that ungodly hour. While in Milas, we also visited Bafa Gölü, a gorgeous little village cradled by the soaring Aegean coastal ranges and seemingly untouched by life post-19th century.
Photographs of Bafa Gölü (According to the legend, it was here that the goddess Selene fell in love with the shepherd Endymion and she asked Zeus to keep the young shepherd in perpetual sleep and bore up to fifty children from her nightly encounters with the sleeping young man. Thanks Wiki.), some wonderful people, and a Byzantine ruin.
But Byzantine history is infantile in comparison to some casual highway ruins biding away in central Izmir. Lars, Krista, and I decided to venture out to Buca with the intention of finding the Roman-turned-Ottoman Kızılçullu Aqueduct. Turns out, the source from which Kızılçullu got its water, the Meles River, was a hang out spot for Homer. Yes, Homer, the ancient Greek epic poet and author of the Illiad and the Odyssey. While Lars took a time-lapse of the traffic speeding under the remains of the aqueduct, Krista and I did some highway-side Turkish studying which certainly attracted some curious stares. Looking back on it – and yes I know that this is profoundly unlikely but let me dream on – the spot where we were studying may well have been quite close to where Homer once was trying to get over writer’s block while working on the Illiad. You never know.
The Fernweh Factor 