Capuchin was later used as the name (first recorded in English in 1785) for a type of monkey with a tuft of black cowl-like hair. Its Italian name came from the long, pointed cowl or cappuccino, derived from capuccio, meaning hood. The Capuchin order of friars played an important role in restoring Catholicism to Reformation Europe. The most popular belief is that the drink gets its name from the robes and cowl of The Capuchin Monk’s habit. No one knows for sure exactly where cappuccino came from, but there are a few sneaky suspicions. Pope Clement actually baptized the delicious drink, making it an acceptable Christian beverage. After he tasted it, however, he succumbed to a perogative that women have relied on for years: he changed his mind. At first, Pope Clement VII was urged by his advisors to consider this favorite drink of infidels a threat. Where did this wonderful beverage come from? Coffee originated in the Ottoman Empire and was first introduced to the West by Italian traders. I even commented to a fellow student that I would have done just as well plastering the contents directly onto my hips and thighs instead of drinking it, as that was where it was headed anyway! The cream was scrumptious and I often had two or three cappuccinos in one sitting just to down some more of it. To make things worse, it was the best cappuccino I ever tasted. The latteria (dairy store) was hidden behind a small narrow street ( calle) that I discovered one day completely by accident. My sense of bad timing originated here where I tasted my first cappuccino some three weeks before I had to return to America. My adventures in this charming city were not limited to Italian men, although I did experience la Dolce Vita in my own particular way. Was he not the proud peacock showing off so that passing women could not fail to notice the multitude of virile hairs (peacock feathers) that had frozen upon his chest? That image has never left me and neither has my love for Italian culture and cappuccino that frothy confection of milk and expresso topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with cinnamon! His shirt was open down to his waist as if it were high August. Who knows?) Anyway, it was a memorable sight because he was seated directly opposite me, but OUTSIDE, despite the freezing temperatures and chopping winds that ripped through the tablecloth. (Maybe it was really anti-freeze he was drinking. I will never forget a February morning in Perugia when I spied from my warm perch a young Italian man sipping an expresso at a café on the town’s main street, Corso Vanucci. The cappuccino is a form of art in Italy. My point will be illustrated with a picture that hopefully will neither need one thousand words nor ignite the cosmopolitan masculine world against me. (Women, Italian and otherwise, have other problems). I wish to acknowledge that this condition is often found in men of all ethnic backgrounds, persuasions and nationalities as well, but in smaller degrees. Italian men, however, represent a particular work in progress I shall call the Peacock Syndrome. The ways of the world are universal the human element uniting all of us with a common thread. There I learned more from living each day than I ever gleaned from any version of Dante’s Inferno and/ or Paradiso. I was a student in a small Umbrian city, (Perugia, where they make all that wonderful candy that does all those not so wonderful things to your teeth, but who cares). The two years I spent in Italy in the 1970s marked in some ways the best times of my life. But where did this wonderful drink come from? Read and learn as you sip away. Is cappuccino a drink or an epicurian fantasy? Surely the frothy concoction evokes images of whipped cream, lazy Roman afternoons, lusty Fellini films and balmy bistro nights even among the least imaginative among us.
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