Pilaf beats traditional breakfast

KASTAMONU - Anatolia News Agency

Pilaf is served with meat stock for breakfast in Kastamonu’s Tosya. AA photo

The traditional Turkish breakfast, which basically includes olives, different types of cheese, tomatoes and cucumbers, is less popular than pilaf in Tosya, a district in the Black Sea province of Kastamonu famous for its rice.

Pilaf, or rice, is eaten with almost every meal in Tosya, one of the significant rice production centers in the country since the founding years of the Republic.

Served with meat stock, this particular kind of rice is cooked for breakfast and very popular among the district’s locals, who also eat pastry or simit along with the pilaf, which is cooked early in the morning.

An ongoing tradition

Tosya Chamber of Agriculture Chairman Ahmet Akdiken said pilaf was very important in Tosya. “Pilaf is cooked with various types of rice and meat stock. It is a regular practice to eat pilaf every morning for us. Our guests from other cities are very surprised because of it. But when they taste this meal in the district, they want to come once again to eat the same thing. We invite everyone to taste this meal.”

A restaurant owner in the district, Mustafa Gömleksiz, said that 80 percent of his customers ate pilaf for breakfast, an ongoing tradition in Tosya for years. “Here the trio of soup, pilaf and tas kebabı (meat stew) should be cooked every day. Eating a meal and eating pilaf are two different things in our town.”