Kuymak

Cornmeal cooked in butter and then beaten with a stringy local cheese until the whole pan pulls into long elastic threads: kuymak is the Black Sea breakfast dish of Trabzon and Rize, eaten from the pan with bread torn off a loaf. Inland and in Erzurum the same preparation is called mıhlama, and the two names are used loosely, with locals arguing about whether the difference is the flour, the cheese or nothing at all. It is a shepherd's and farmer's food, built from three things the region has in abundance, maize, butter and cheese, and it has become the dish visitors to the eastern Black Sea are told to try first. Its closest relative abroad is the aligot of the Auvergne, which does the same thing with potato instead of corn.