Turkish breakfast today is famed for its wide range of selections, with two dozen or more small plates of everything from crumbly cheese to fried garlic sausage to a mixture of tahini and molasses all found on the same table. It is not unusual to begin late, particularly on weekends after a late night. The meal is slow-paced and communal, and often enough to keep one full until dinner.

But in the city of Gaziantep, considered by many to be Turkey's culinary capital, the most prized breakfast is a serenely spicy and hearty soup called beyran, and only the early bird gets it. Tender strips of lamb are topped with rice and then drowned in a fiery broth teeming with red pepper flakes. The best spot to get it is a restaurant called Metanet — which aptly means “strength” or “backbone” in Turkish — in the heart of Gaziantep's old city, but the morning rush begins at the crack of dawn and it tends to sell out quick.

In Turkey, soup is more than dish or even a meal. It is the bearer of a vast, rich culture and an indispensable pillar of the Turkish culinary fortress. There are countless recipes from every pocket of the country made from a dazzling wealth of ingredients, from the familiar to the unlikely.

“In every region, soup is atop the list of essentials. If there are many things we long for, the absolute must for everyone is the soup of their land. People really love it and long for it,” said Musa Dagdeviren, the owner of Istanbul's celebrated restaurant and culinary institution Ciya and an eminent scholar on the cuisines of Anatolia.