Poğaça is a small traditional savory pastry in Turkey that is usually preferred for breakfasts. All pastry shops sell Poğaça as their main product in Turkey. Usually, people stop by these pastry shops early in the morning on the way to work to buy some of these small Poğaças for a quick breakfast.

There are a few versions of it with different fillings like white cheese, cheddar cheese, minced meat, or potato. Some pastry shops are even offering without fillings. Pastry shops, mostly offer both small and big sizes, however, I always prefer small-sized ones.

The Story of Poğaça

When I made a research about it on the internet, I learned that Poğaça word came from the Latin language and was found in Italy in the early 1600s and it was first spelled as foğoça. It makes sense it came from Italy because the main ingredient of Poğaça is flour and Italians are using flour to make pastries for centuries. When I ask both Ottoman and Turkish culture historians where it came from to our cuisine. They said; they don’t have any record for Poğoça.

In Turkey, the other name of this Poğaça, which I shared below recipe of, is called Anane Poğaçası. That means Grand Mother’s Poğaça if you translate it into English. I don’t know who gave it that name but I was using that name too. We call it this because all kids’ grandmothers in Turkey cook this delicious pastry. My grandmother was also cooking below given Poğaça because this recipe belongs to her cooking notes.

How to eat Poğaça?

In Turkey, we like to eat it very hot; I mean right after we take it out of the oven because we put butter on it and let it melt on it before we eat. In pastry shops, we have endless variations of Poğaça. If you look at the below photo that I took in the morning, you can see how many different variations we have.