Van breakfast prepares for Guinness record

VAN - Anadolu Agency

DHA Photo

The Van Trade and Industrial Chamber (TSO) is working to break the “world’s most crowded breakfast table” record with a spread of the eastern province’s famous and rich breakfast. The chamber has applied to the Guinness Turkey Office to break the record, which is currently held by the United States.

The Van breakfast, arguably the most famous in Turkey, features at least 20 products such as herbal cheese, made with a mixture of various herbs unique to the region; martuğa, made with flour, butter and egg; and kavut, made with ground wheat.

Appealing both to the eyes and the taste bud, the Van breakfast table will host 30,000 people at the same time during the record attempt, whose goal is to promote the thousands of years of breakfast to the world.

Van TSO Chairman Necdet Takva said that during their talks with the Guinness Turkish Office, they had decided to break the record in the “world’s most crowded breakfast table” category and started appropriate work.

“We plan to hold the event on June 1. Since there is no other place in the world which is famous for meal time, we are working to promote the Van breakfast at a national and international level. There will also be earl mullet migration at the same time in the region. We also want to show these two things of beauty to people to come to our city. We will give our energy to enter the book. We aim to bring 30,000 people to the record attempt. We are not concerned about the number. We want more people to know about the Van breakfast, which offers dozens of foods,” Takva said.

Locals should help project

Takva also called for locals of the province to get behind the project, while noting that they were receiving support from the Van Governor’s Office, Van Municipality, Yüzüncü Yıl University, the Eastern Anatolia Development Agency, the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey and the Promotion Fund of the Prime Ministry.

Noting that they would organize the event at Kültür Park behind the Van Fortress, he said: “Visually, the İskele Coast is a very important place but it cannot host 30,000 people. This is why we will organize is at Kültür Park. We will give breakfast boxes to 30,000 people. Previously, nearly 20,000 people broke the breakfast record in the U.S. Our goal is to increase it to 30,000 so that nobody will able to break this record again. We believe that we can succeed with the support of Van. Lots of companies and people have asked to contribute to us. We believe that we can do it.”

Takva said they also had efforts to make the Van breakfast a brand and determine some standards for it, adding that they had applied to the Turkish Patent Institute and that their application had been approved.

He said one of the most important features of Van breakfast was herbal cheese and that other products unique to the area were also served along with it. “The herbs used in the herbal cheese are not grown in any other part of the world,” he added.

“We are living at an altitude of 1,700 meters. The approximate height of our mountain is 3,000 meters, and it has unique plant flora. Cheese produced with endemic plants is the basic ingredient in our breakfast. We also have products like kavut, murtuğa, Van honey and cacık [yogurt with cucumber]. Following the record attempt, we plan to organize a breakfast festival every year,” Takva said.

Press conference for companies

Takva held a press conference on April 9 with the attendance of companies that will sponsor the breakfast event. He said they were inviting everyone to join the breakfast table on June 1.

“Van has much potential to become a brand city. Van breakfast is only one of them and the best known one. Van locals and nongovernmental organizations are working to break the record of the U.S. with 18,941 people. Tables will be placed in Kültür Park and some 20 breakfast foods will be served. After breaking the record, there will be concerts and competitions. We invite everyone in the city to join it.

We also invited 1,000 people including Turkish and world leaders. Even though the number is more than we expect, nobody will leave the area without having breakfast,” Takva said.

During the record attempt, citizens in the area will be given 30,000 tons of eggs, a ton of herbal cheese, 1.5 tons of honey and breakfast boxes of various Van foods.