Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, August 1877Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, August 1877
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
With a very few exceptions, all the leading cafes of Paris have become
restaurants. You breakfast, dine and sup there; and in place of coffee
being the sole or leading article of consumption, an infinite variety of
drinks is now at the disposal of the thirsty wayfarer. Mocha, that product
of the East the preparation of which, like the making of bread, is the
stumbling-block of housekeepers in both hemispheres, is served in three
ways--as a _capucin_, a _mazagran_ or a _demi-tasse_. A capucin (the name
is but little used) is our cup of coffee--coffee with milk in it; a
mazagran is coffee in a glass, accompanying which a decanter of water is
brought. The name is derived from a village in Africa where the French had
a brilliant feat of arms, and where the soldiers, in the absence of milk
or brandy, had to water their coffee or drink it _au naturel_. The coffee
itself is precisely the same as that furnished for the demi-tasse, which
is served in a small china cup, accompanying which is a little decanter of
cognac, with a fairy glass for measuring it; for the French, in place of
cream, take brandy with coffee and rum with tea--to us an incomprehensible
mixture. After breakfast and dinner the Frenchman desires coffee, and if
he does not get it at home he goes to the cafe for it. To do without it,
or to do without claret at meals, would be a dreadful alternative to which
he would not long submit without, it might be, losing his reason and
taking his life. Strong, black and fragrant, he would die without that
beverage for which--and for Racine, by the way--Madame de Sevigne
prophesied an ephemeral popularity. Taken immediately after meals, it
removes the fumes of the claret and champagne he has drunk, and leaves him
feeling as clear-headed as Plato and grateful as a pensioner of the king.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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