Kahvaltıda tereyağı ve kaymak vardı; ben ekmeğe ikisini de sürdüm.

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Breakdown of Kahvaltıda tereyağı ve kaymak vardı; ben ekmeğe ikisini de sürdüm.

• ekmek: the bread
• ve: and
• kahvaltı: the breakfast

Questions & Answers about Kahvaltıda tereyağı ve kaymak vardı; ben ekmeğe ikisini de sürdüm.

Why is kahvaltıda used here? Does it literally mean in breakfast?

Yes, literally it is kahvaltı + -da, the locative ending.

• kahvaltı = breakfast
• -da/-de = in, at, on, during, depending on context

With meal names, Turkish often uses the locative to mean at breakfast, at dinner, during lunch, etc. So Kahvaltıda is best understood as At breakfast or For breakfast, not as a physical location.

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What does vardı mean, and why is it used instead of a normal verb like was/were?

Var means there is / there are / exists.
Its past form vardı means there was / there were.

So:

• tereyağı ve kaymak vardı = there was butter and kaymak
• more natural English: there were butter and kaymak available / on the table

Turkish uses var and yok very often for existence or availability. In this sentence, the idea is not just that butter and kaymak were in some abstract sense, but that they were there at breakfast.

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Why is ben included? Doesn’t sürdüm already mean I spread?