SC - TI Article - Support Kitchen

[Wajdi]

The first problem is the author's sources were not the best for the subject.
IIRC, two were survey works and one is a "popular" history of cooking filled
largely with anecdotal and apocryphal information.  Neither Ukers nor
Hattox, the two best general sources on the history of coffee were cited.

The author then used these poor sources to push the drinking of coffee
further into the past than can be reasonable demonstrated.  To be blunt, the
article was badly researched and contains a large amount of misleading or
incorrect information.  Cariadoc wrote a polite letter of comment on the
article to TI which accurately stated the historical problems he saw.  To
make matters worse, in my opinion, the author was a school teacher and
should have known how to perform scholarly research and should have been
able to evaluate the quality of the sources.

In my opinion, the article was primarily designed to justify the use of
coffee by Crusader personnas, a point which can not be proven by any
historical documentation or archeological evidence.  Even had they
encountered coffee, it would have been under very limited circumstances as
the beverage was not in general use this early. 

The facts are, medicinally, the plant was known as early as 900 CE, but the
earliest I can place it's use as a beverage is about 1250, and that date is
based on legend and is therefore unreliable.  

The use of coffee as a beverage appears to have started in Sufi rituals in
the 13th or 14th Centuries, but it's use among the general population dates
only to about 1450 and it did not spread through the Islamic world until the
15th Century.

European use of coffee begins in Italy during the later half of the 16th
Century and spreads to the rest of Europe over the next 2 centuries.

Read over the article, then take a look at the Florilegium for discussions
on coffee which have appeared on this list.  It is enlightening.

Bear



> What was "wrong with the coffee article?" I'm going to have 
> to go dig in
> my pile of old TI's to reread it...what were people's objections?
> (asking 'cuz I wasn't on the list then ;-)
> --Maire