What is in a name? Cappuccino

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Where does the word cappuccino come from and how did the word for a Capuchin friar come to be used for a cup of coffee? And why did they serve coffee made with egg whites and yolks? OK that last one is not answered but I found it an interesting read but I have to say I am not tempted to try coffee "poured over egg whites and yolks and whisked".

Their brown tunics are probably the reason why their name was given to Capuchin monkeys, some of which have brown coats, and to cups of brown (as opposed to black) coffee, lightened by the use of milk, cream or even egg.

In Italian, cappuccino was being used to refer to coffee in the 1930s. A French writer records it in Venice in 1937 and La Stampa in Turin in 1939. But it was actually in German that "Kapuziner" was first applied to coffee.

One example is a recipe for "Capuzinerkaffee" by the German "Wilhelm Tissot", published in 1790. The coffee is boiled, then mixed with cream, sugar and spices and boiled again before being poured over egg whites and yolks and whisked.

In café-loving 19th and early 20th Century Vienna, Kapuziner came to mean simply coffee with a little milk added.

For the full article, see here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-34100569
 
Where does the word cappuccino come from and how did the word for a Capuchin friar come to be used for a cup of coffee? And why did they serve coffee made with egg whites and yolks? OK that last one is not answered but I found it an interesting read but I have to say I am not tempted to try coffee "poured over egg whites and yolks and whisked"
Its good to see that @classic33's coffee quiz has sparked your curiosity! :D
 
I knew about the monks as I went Rome this year and visited the Capuchin monk museum and it mentioned this being where the work cappuccino was from, but I hadn't heard of the other possibilities, very interesting!
 
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