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The coffee ritual
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| Whenever you hear someone speak of a good cup of coffee, your mind automatically conjures up images of Naples, the city where the enjoyment of this dark brew has been elevated to the status of a cult ritual. The "tazzulella 'e cafè", i.e. cup of coffee, however, is not actually from Naples. Much in the same way as occurred with pasta, the contribution of the Neapolitans was to serve, at a fairly late stage in the beverage's history, as the perfecters of a tradition that arrived from far afield. Like pasta, coffee also came from an exotic part of the world. Arab traders first discovered coffee in Ethiopia and began to cultivate it on the Arabian Peninsula sometime between 1000 to 1500 years ago. |
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The first coffee shop in Europe was opened in Venice back in 1640, but Paris was quick (in contemporary terms) to get on the bandwagon. In 1660 a Sicilian by the name of Francesco Procopio de' Coltelli opened the celebrated "Procope" coffee shop, destined to serve as the cradle of the Enlightenment.In Naples, however, even by the end of the 18th century, coffee still had not really caught on. News, of course, of this stimulating beverage had been circulating in the Parthenopean city since the early 1600's. It was then that the Roman musicologist and world-traveler, Retro Della Valle made frequent mention of it in his correspondence from Constantinople, sending detailed reports to his adopted city on how the Turks prepared and consumed this exotic concoction. There was also reference to the alleged properties of coffee in one of the most well-known treatises published by the Salerno School of Medicine clear back in the fourteenth century. Indeed, up through to the end of the seventeenth century the erudite doctors of the Salerno School of Medicine carried on a very lively debate regarding the true merits of coffee.
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NAPLES, THE HOME OF COFFEE |
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Coffee wasn't really widely drunk in Naples, however, until the 1800's when it was popularized by itinerant coffee vendors who hawked it to one and all. They wandered the city's streets at the crack of dawn with their two large "tremmoni" (containers), full of coffee and milk, and a basket for cups and sugar. About this same time Naples experienced a conspicuous increase in new coffee shops emulating the establishments found pretty much throughout the rest of Europe. Two of the most celebrated of these cafes were the Caffè Pinto, where the Italian poet Leopardi sipped his incredibly sweet coffee (reputedly, his sweet tooth required no less than twelve spoonfuls of sugar per cup!), and the Gran Caffè, the official purveyor to the royal household. Naples was also the birthplace of a curious coffee drink featuring copious amounts of cream and chocolate, known as a "barbajata". This drink made the fortune of its creator, the Milanese Domenico Barbaja, the legendary impresario of the Teatro San Carlo, the man who discovered such remarkable talents as Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini.
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HOW TO MAKE A REAL NEAPOLITAN COFFEE |
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In order to prepare a cup of coffee like the experts, a crucial role is played by the coffeepot, or the "napoletana" as its called in Italy. The secret lies in the "coppetiello", the little cone (traditionally formed from dampened newspaper) that is placed over the spout of the coffee pot as soon as it has been turned over. The paper cone is essential for holding in all the aroma and flavor of the coffee. Talleyrand, France's foreign minister at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, said that coffee is only worthy of its name, and this still holds true today, if it's "hot as hell, black as the devil, pure as an angel and sweet as love".
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