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The Forward
June 25, 2010
Israel's Freedom Fries Moment;
On Language
It was, I suppose, predictable. In Israel there is now a movement to
change the name of Turkish coffee, or kafey turki, as it is known in
Hebrew. Bad enough, the movement's proponents say, to be insulted by
the Turkish government, denounced by its prime minister and have one's
flag burned by Turkish demonstrators without also having to drink the
Turks' coffee especially since they never invented it in the first
place.
Although kafey turki is likely to remain kafey turki in Israel, just
as French fries remained French fries in America despite efforts to
rename them when France criticized the American invasion of Iraq, the
antis have a point. The Turks were not the originators of Turkish
coffee which, for those of you who may never have drunk it, is
prepared by heating water, finely ground coffee beans, and (unless you
prefer it bitter) sugar in a beaker, bringing the mixture to a boil,
quickly removing it from the fire to prevent it from overflowing, and
repeating the procedure several times. After the final boiling, the
beaker must be left alone for a while to let the coffee grounds settle
to the bottom. Even then, the coffee should be poured slowly and
gently to keep the grounds from spilling out into the cup.
This is the simplest and almost certainly the oldest method of making
coffee, whose beans originally came from a plant indigenous to the
highlands of Ethiopia, where they were probably first drunk in
powdered form somewhere between 600 and 1,000 years ago. The
Ethiopians called the coffee plant bun, and when, in the 15th and 16th
centuries, its consumption, and, eventually, its cultivation crossed
the Gulf of Eden to Yemen and traveled from there to other Arab
countries, the drink was called by the Arabs qahwat el-bun, the elixir
of the bun. . In time, this was shortened shortqahwa, to qahwa, from
which our English coffee ultimately derives.
To this day, Turkish coffee is, other than in cafés and hotels
designed for tourists, the only coffee prepared in Arab countries,
where it is simply called qahwa with no need for a qualifying
adjective.
Why, then, have the Turks gotten credit for it in many of the
languages of Europe? The obvious answer would seem to be that it was
the coffeehouses of the Ottoman Empire that spread the drinking of
coffee to Greece and the Balkans, from which it reached the rest of
Europe. Coffee's diffusion took place quickly. First drunk in Istanbul
in the 1550s (The Turks, who do not have a w sound, called it kahve,
and the voiced v changed in most European languages to an unvoiced
f.), it arrived in Western Europe a hundred years later. The first
English coffeehouse was established in London in 1654, and by the end
of the 17th century, coffee was a widespread drink throughout Europe.
And yet the obvious answer to why credit accrues to the Turks is wrong
because the term Turkish coffee did not appear in European languages
until relatively recently. Not only, for example, won't you find it in
the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, whose 12th and last volume
was published in 1895, you won't even find it in the OED's 1933
supplement, although you will find Turkish bath, Turkish delight and
Turkish towel.
This really shouldn't be so surprising. After all, well into the 19th
century, coffee in Europe was what it still is in the Arab world
today: boiled in a beaker. There being only one kind, it was known
everywhere simply as coffee.
Non-Turkish coffee is a largely20th-century development. Although the
first percolator was designed by the American inventor Benjamin
Thompson (1753-1814), commercial percolators were not introduced into
the United States until the late 19th century. The first espresso
machine dates to 1901. The first paper filter was created in Germany
in 1908. (It is possible to make, under duress, palatable filter
coffee by using an ordinary sock, too, but I doubt whether socks were
ever widely resorted to). The first French press coffee maker was
patented in 1929.
It was only when such alternative coffee-making techniques became
popular, eventually supplanting the older method throughout Europe and
the Americas, that a name for this method became imperative. Turkish
coffee was the one given it because, even though it was an Ethiopian
and Arab invention, many fewer Europeans had been to Ethiopia or Arab
lands than to Tu r k e y, and boiled-beaker coffee was known primarily
as a Turkish drink.
And yet it is not only the Arabs who still don't call Turkish coffee
Turkish coffee. The Greeks, who used to call it that, began saying
Greek coffee after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, while the
Armenians, who have even less reason to like the Turks than do the
Greeks, call it Armenian coffee. (In fact, I was nearly thrown out of
an Armenian restaurant in New York for asking for Turkish coffee at
the end of my meal.) Hopefully,
Turkish-Israeli relations will not deteriorate to the point where
Israelis feel the same way. And even if they should, Turkish coffee in
Israel is largely an Arab drink. Most Jews prefer espresso or other
forms of coffee and drink kafey turki only when camping or roughing
it.
Israeli coffee it will never be called, even if diplomacy fails.
From: A. Papazian
June 25, 2010
Israel's Freedom Fries Moment;
On Language
It was, I suppose, predictable. In Israel there is now a movement to
change the name of Turkish coffee, or kafey turki, as it is known in
Hebrew. Bad enough, the movement's proponents say, to be insulted by
the Turkish government, denounced by its prime minister and have one's
flag burned by Turkish demonstrators without also having to drink the
Turks' coffee especially since they never invented it in the first
place.
Although kafey turki is likely to remain kafey turki in Israel, just
as French fries remained French fries in America despite efforts to
rename them when France criticized the American invasion of Iraq, the
antis have a point. The Turks were not the originators of Turkish
coffee which, for those of you who may never have drunk it, is
prepared by heating water, finely ground coffee beans, and (unless you
prefer it bitter) sugar in a beaker, bringing the mixture to a boil,
quickly removing it from the fire to prevent it from overflowing, and
repeating the procedure several times. After the final boiling, the
beaker must be left alone for a while to let the coffee grounds settle
to the bottom. Even then, the coffee should be poured slowly and
gently to keep the grounds from spilling out into the cup.
This is the simplest and almost certainly the oldest method of making
coffee, whose beans originally came from a plant indigenous to the
highlands of Ethiopia, where they were probably first drunk in
powdered form somewhere between 600 and 1,000 years ago. The
Ethiopians called the coffee plant bun, and when, in the 15th and 16th
centuries, its consumption, and, eventually, its cultivation crossed
the Gulf of Eden to Yemen and traveled from there to other Arab
countries, the drink was called by the Arabs qahwat el-bun, the elixir
of the bun. . In time, this was shortened shortqahwa, to qahwa, from
which our English coffee ultimately derives.
To this day, Turkish coffee is, other than in cafés and hotels
designed for tourists, the only coffee prepared in Arab countries,
where it is simply called qahwa with no need for a qualifying
adjective.
Why, then, have the Turks gotten credit for it in many of the
languages of Europe? The obvious answer would seem to be that it was
the coffeehouses of the Ottoman Empire that spread the drinking of
coffee to Greece and the Balkans, from which it reached the rest of
Europe. Coffee's diffusion took place quickly. First drunk in Istanbul
in the 1550s (The Turks, who do not have a w sound, called it kahve,
and the voiced v changed in most European languages to an unvoiced
f.), it arrived in Western Europe a hundred years later. The first
English coffeehouse was established in London in 1654, and by the end
of the 17th century, coffee was a widespread drink throughout Europe.
And yet the obvious answer to why credit accrues to the Turks is wrong
because the term Turkish coffee did not appear in European languages
until relatively recently. Not only, for example, won't you find it in
the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, whose 12th and last volume
was published in 1895, you won't even find it in the OED's 1933
supplement, although you will find Turkish bath, Turkish delight and
Turkish towel.
This really shouldn't be so surprising. After all, well into the 19th
century, coffee in Europe was what it still is in the Arab world
today: boiled in a beaker. There being only one kind, it was known
everywhere simply as coffee.
Non-Turkish coffee is a largely20th-century development. Although the
first percolator was designed by the American inventor Benjamin
Thompson (1753-1814), commercial percolators were not introduced into
the United States until the late 19th century. The first espresso
machine dates to 1901. The first paper filter was created in Germany
in 1908. (It is possible to make, under duress, palatable filter
coffee by using an ordinary sock, too, but I doubt whether socks were
ever widely resorted to). The first French press coffee maker was
patented in 1929.
It was only when such alternative coffee-making techniques became
popular, eventually supplanting the older method throughout Europe and
the Americas, that a name for this method became imperative. Turkish
coffee was the one given it because, even though it was an Ethiopian
and Arab invention, many fewer Europeans had been to Ethiopia or Arab
lands than to Tu r k e y, and boiled-beaker coffee was known primarily
as a Turkish drink.
And yet it is not only the Arabs who still don't call Turkish coffee
Turkish coffee. The Greeks, who used to call it that, began saying
Greek coffee after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, while the
Armenians, who have even less reason to like the Turks than do the
Greeks, call it Armenian coffee. (In fact, I was nearly thrown out of
an Armenian restaurant in New York for asking for Turkish coffee at
the end of my meal.) Hopefully,
Turkish-Israeli relations will not deteriorate to the point where
Israelis feel the same way. And even if they should, Turkish coffee in
Israel is largely an Arab drink. Most Jews prefer espresso or other
forms of coffee and drink kafey turki only when camping or roughing
it.
Israeli coffee it will never be called, even if diplomacy fails.
From: A. Papazian