Why CAPPUCCINO?

hooded origins

The best place to start anything creative(!?) is to set it firmly on its proper feet, so a few words on the title is more than a valid place to start. The word cappuccino needs little to define and is now well and truly a household name around the world. This Italian coffee drink, prepared with espresso and milk, is generally described as 1/3 espresso, 1/3 steamed milk and 1/3 frothed milk. Another definition would call for 1/3 espresso and 2/3 microfoam. A cappuccino differs from a latte macchiato, which is mostly milk and little foam. (A "dry cappuccino" has less milk!)  In Italy it is consumed almost exclusively early in the day for breakfast; in some other countries it may be consumed throughout the day or after dinner.With typical Italian culinary finesse, a cappuccino is ideally prepared in a ceramic coffee cup, which has far better heat retention characteristics than glass or paper.

Franciscan friars....

Wikipaedia says that cappuccino was a taste largely confined to Europe and a few of the more cosmopolitan cities of North America until the mid-1990s when cappuccino was made much more widely available to North Americans, as part of the new upscale coffee bar chains with a consciously "European" air.

The origin of the name is said to be in the brown hooded robes worn by the Capuchin order of Franciscan friars. In France at the beginning of the 18th century a new fashion arose in Paris for carved wall-panelling boiseries that were left in their natural colour (almost invariably oak) rather than being painted or gilded. The new mode was wittily termed à la capucine in reference to the brown color of the robes worn by the Franciscan friars. This color-coded etymology is followed by the Oxford English Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary. The order of Capuchins was, in turn, named for the capucize (cappuccio), or long pointed cowl, worn by the friars. Similarly, the cream on a well-made cappuccino covers the beverage as a sort of cappuccio.

Traditionalist Catholics find the etymology mildly disrespectful, and offer a twist on a familiar coffee legend: after the Battle of Vienna (1683) and the Ottoman siege was lifted, the Capuchin friar Marco d'Aviano (beatified in April 2003) invented the drink after the Turks retreated, leaving bags of coffee beans in their tents. Allegedly, d'Aviano added milk and honey to sweeten the bitter coffee left by fleeing Turkish armies, though for a Viennese of the 17th or 21st century, coffee sweetened with honey would be an emblem of desperation. This same legend is also more widely told of a Pole, Kolschitzky, in the aftermath of the Siege.

As we come closer to my own Mediterranean home we find that an essential part of the colour of typical Med culture and ethnic lifestyle is the coffeehouse. Its role - from its very beginnings - has been its social functions, providing a place where people go to congregate, talk, write, read, play games or while away time individually or in small groups. They are popular throughout all the Mediterranean countries, from the European to the Arab shores.

The coffehouse

This particular social feature of the coffeehouse - kapheneion to the Greeks, café to the French or caffè to the Italians – inspired this collection of thoughts and reflections on the quality of life. They are culled from my own experiences of my life, but hopefully they will extend their influence beyond that, to yours too, through these writings. And your comments in return here.

Hopefully, the blogs that will follow will flow softly but strongly... like a good coffee….inspiring, uplifting, adrenalising life in the process. A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or cafe shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant. As their name suggests, coffeehouses focus on providing coffee and tea as well as light snacks. So in this blog I am sure that there will be occasions in the weeks to come when we will eat too. The food(!) on offer may range from baked goods to soups and sandwiches, other casual meals,and light desserts.