Breakfast foods consist of cheese, butter, eggs, tea, various types of breads, buns and böreks, and sometimes head-and-feet soup.

Afternoon tea will usually include various mürebbe (preserves), hard cube sugar or rock candy, candies and a variety of pastries. The most noteworthy local preserves include green walnut, watermelon peel, eggplant, tomato, blackberry (used to treat colds as well), white cherry, plum, apricot and peach.

Tea is a major breakfast item in Azerbaijan. Tea houses, or çayhanalar are known to have existed since the 16th century. Coffee is less prevalent.

Various wild plants are also steeped as tea, including thyme, wild cinnamon, quince seeds, corn tassels, etc.

There is a broad variety of “special occasion foods” in Azerbaijani cuisine. Semeni for Nevruz, kuvut for the Hızır Nebi celebration, hedik and kavurga for the occasion of a child’s first tooth. It is also customary to prepare certain special dishes for milestones in life such as birth, circumcision, engagements and marriages, deaths, etc.

On Nevruz (spring equinox, the ancient Persian new year) special pilafs are prepared: in Baku, şüyud pilaf with dill, in Şeki, döşeme pilaf with chestnuts and chicken, in Şamahi, pilaf with pickles and preserved meat, and in Lenkaran, levengeli pilaf. These are served to those who come to visit and give their greetings.

The Nevruz sofra also includes semeni (a pudding made of cooked sprouted wheat), ribs, dyed eggs, şekerbura, baklava, şor gogal, various nuts and dried fruits, and Nevruz candies. There are also homemade drinks prepared from dried fruits such as plums, apricots, raisins, apples, pears etc.

Nevruz is also an occasion to visit graves. Semeni, eggs, sweets and fruits and nuts are taken to the cemetery, and left on a tray placed on the grave. However, the eggs are undyed, and as an expression of mourning, the semeni is tied with a black ribbon. The semeni remains on the grave and nobody touches. Flour halvah is also prepared and amounts appropriate for one person is wrapped in lavash and taken to the cemetery, to be shared at the entrance, with anyone who happens by. Those who take it say Allah kabul etsin (May Allah accept it). Those who have made it in the name of a deceased person do not eat it.

On Nevruz, people who are at odds or have some quarrel behave as if there is nothing wrong between them. Everyone puts on something brand new for the holiday. Children give greetings to adults and receive Nevruz presents, which include dyed eggs, candies and sweets, and money. The children put the eggs in bags, go out into the fields and play a game in which one child holds and egg and another hits it with his own egg. The egg that survives the blow wins, and this goes on until there is one left.

Girls who are engaged receive a Nevruz tray from their fiancés – one tray of baklava, one of şekerbura, and one of şor gogal, semeni, dyed eggs and candies. In addition, the girl receives a tray with clothes, gold, a head scarf, underclothes, perfumes etc. Shoes are not given to an engaged girl, as they are seen to signify hard financial times.

For weddings and circumcisions, dolma, kebab, and thick soup (aş) are made, as well cold foods and alcoholic drinks. Sweets are not made, but they are present at engagements.

Haşıl, kuymak and baked goods (düşbere, kutab, hengel) are made and taken to women who have given birth.

Forty days after a death, food is made and served to guests, and special dishes are prepared on Thursdays. Each Thursday for 40 days following a death, the family goes to the cemetery with the hoca (imam). The “fortieth” after a death is a two-day affair. On the first day, the women go, and on the second day, the men. The men hold a reading (chanting) of the Koran, and the mourning period is officially over. In some regions, there is a gathering on the 52nd day as well.

According to Asker Kartarı, who conducted a comprehensive study titled “Azerbaijan and Euphrates Basins: A Comparative Examination of Culinary Cultures,” the Oğuz tribes’ passage through Azerbaijan in their migration to Anatolia brought Azerbaijani cuisine to many different areas.

Parallels to Azerbaijani culinary culture in Turkey can be summed up thus:

a. Meals are eaten at approximately the same times.

b. Two kinds of eating arrangements are found in both regions. The first is the floor sofra among more traditional people, and the second is tables in towns in cities.

c. There are similarities in the etiquette followed at normal meals as well as ceremonial meals. A complete inventory of the cultural values around food will reveal a more through view of these similarities.

d. There are great similarities in the ethnography of kitchens, hearths and storage areas, and in the names of cooking utensils.

e. There are great similarities between the foods of the Euphrates basin and of Azerbaijan. These are classified as soups, meat dishes, vegetable dishes, kebabs, dolma and sarma, pilafs, sweets, salads, pickles, “dough-based foods” and herbs and spices.

The similarities to be seen between the culinary cultures of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani settlements in Turkey shows that the unity of Turkish culture has survived to the present with very little change. It is clear that comparative studies in this area will bring new knowledge and documentation to this field of study.