Turkey

Turkish cuisine sits where Ottoman palace kitchens met Anatolian village fires, spanning mezes, slow-cooked kebabs, stuffed vegetables (dolma), and an unrivaled tradition of sweets like baklava. Bread, yogurt, and tea accompany nearly every meal.

Turkish breakfast is called kahvalti, from kahve and alti, literally what goes under the coffee, because it began as the small spread eaten before the day's first cup. It has since expanded into an event: cheeses, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers, eggs, honey with clotted cream, jams, borek and bread, with tea poured continuously throughout.

Baklava's origins are genuinely unsettled, argued between Greek, Arab-Persian and Central Asian Turkic ancestries, so nobody should be handed the invention. What is documented is Gaziantep: its baklava was the first Turkish product to win an EU protected geographical indication, in 2013, and the specification requires Antep pistachios.

Soft eggs scrambled into a simmered base of tomato, green pepper, and pul biber.