1: Coffee is a Place
Coffee is a place. I’m standing in line at a coffee shop in California. Looking up at the menu I see a dozen drinks I can order — latte, espresso, chai — but right now I’m staring at coffee and thinking, “Coffee is a place.”
COFFEE is a place in Ethiopia. It’s called KAFFA and like California it’s in the West of the country. A thousand years ago someone in KAFFA picked a bean off, roasted it and started brewing coffee.
KAFFA became famous when the next door Arabs in Yemen got a taste of it. They crossed the Red Sea, picked up a plant and brought it home. They loved their KAFFA, and in Arabic its name evolved to QAHWAH. Say both words aloud, it’s basically unchanged.
Standing in line I look up at my other options. I could order a Mocha. That’s also a place. Mocha is the port town in Yemen. When the Arabs finally decided to start selling coffee, they shipped off to Europe from these docks. The crates and bags were stamped MOCHA. When they arrived in places like London that became a short-hand for fine coffee.
It’s around 1600, coffee shops are opening everywhere, and people are also going nuts for another new drink, but this one is from Mexico. It’s bitter, made of chocolate, and it probably gets mixed with coffee from MOCHA. From that point forward MOCHA becomes the name for chocolate coffee. KAFFA in Ethiopia, MOCHA in Yemen. I think of these places as I decide on a CAFFÉ MOCHA. Ordering a COFFEE is just like ordering a MANHATTAN. COFFEE is a place.
Food names are an infinite game. Every menu is a puzzle, a match to play with your memory and intuition. A BISCOTTI looks a little like BISCUIT, I wonder if they’re related (they are), and I wonder what they first meant (twice-cooked).
Etymology is fun but Gastroetymology is delicious. You see and say food names every day, giving you many times to play, question and wonder.
Once you get bit by a few words, you will start to see a world that everyone else misses. It’s like x-ray vision. A whole invisible layer of meaning and connections and only you can see it.
Places are one pattern, a big pattern. Tons of foods named after places. Think of any country and then come up with a food that’s named with it. FRENCH FRIES, SWISS CHEESE, POLISH SAUSAGE. Sometimes the food gets dropped and we’re left ordering a bunch of places: a TURKEY and SWISS SANDWICH is made of three of them.
I’m still in line. What should I order with my coffee. What about that BISCOTTI. Hidden inside that cookie is another big pattern. BISCOTTI is twice-baked. First, you bake a loaf of COOKIE, then you slice it, and bake those slices again. It’s name is a method or recipe. It was PANIS BIS COCTUS in Latin, bread twice cooked. Method, like Place, is something you can start to spot everywhere.
It’s BISCOTTI in Italian and BISCUIT in English. But we love and use both of those names, even though they are fraternal twins of the same parent. We’re big fans of foreign words, they are special and exciting. It also helps us manage a huge import of new foods. Once upon a time there was only one kind of milky coffee drink. Ordering was simple then, coffee with milk, please. But then came the CAFFÉ LATTE, the Italian coffee with milk. Then the French showed up with their yummy CAFÉ AU LAIT and the Spanish with their CAFÉ CON LECHE. Three different drinks, one meaning. What’s a CAFÉ owner to do?
Let’s call them Foreign Cousins. They come from the same grandparent, and stay separate in our gastronomic English. Foreign Cousins are another big pattern.
Places, Methods, Foreign Cousins. Equipped with those you can make your way around at least half the menu.
I’m hungrier than I thought. I’m going to skip the twice-baked BISCOTTI and go for a shapely BAGEL. Those two give me the next big pattern, Likeness. To get I could ask a child what they resemble and I’d get their etymology. A BAGEL is a ring and it’s named for that shape. It comes BEYGL in Yiddish and before that BOUG in German. Both meant ring and gave this breaded treat its name. If instead I order a CROISSANT I’m still in the world of shapes. You can see Likeness riddled throughout the baked goods, from the arms-crossed, PRETZEL to wand-like BAGUETTE. Once you’ve seen them, you’ll never forget.
Ok, he wants to know my order. It’s going to be COOKIE…or slice of CAKE…or maybe QUICHE. So hard to choose. They’re all the same, or came from the same cake, KOKON in Old German. One went to France to become QUICHE. The two others hung out among the Dutch. First came the cake KOEK, then came the little cake, KOEKJE. By the time they make it to California, it takes a master to see their Hidden Root.
Hidden Roots is the last big pattern. You’ll see a root like grandpa KOKON turn into a mess of foods. SAL for SALT is an amazing example. It starts in Latin and becomes SALAMI, SALSA and SALAD. You can see the SALTY root SAL in all of those. Less than ten of those roots will show you an extended family of a hundred foods.
Coffee is just the beginning.
