Etymologically Speaking
August 21st, 2007 | by Ozgur Cem Sen |Curious about the words’ origins?
- Cerveza (Spanish) Beer
- This term, which means “beer” in Spanish, originally came from the medieval French word cervoise. For its part, the French term origianlly stemmed from the Gallo-Roman (that is, ancient French-Latin dialect) word cerevisia, which was used in honor of Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest. It is interesting to note that just about the time that the Spanish were adopting the term cerveza (aroung 1482), the French started to drop cervoise in favor of the term biere– from the Germanic term Bier (from the Latin biber, “to drink”), which was the term that was more popular in northern Europe, where the climate was more favorable to the production of the grains that were used to make the beverage. [(A footnote: the reader might be wondering what term was used in Spain before the adoption of cerveza. Before 1482, the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula had used the completely-unrelated ancient Iberian word ceria or celia, meaning "fermented wheat.")(Footnote #2: The English term ale comes from the Scandinavian term for beer, oel. Although oel collectively refers to all types of beer, you beer purists out there know that the English term ale came to refer only to beer produced using the "top" fermentation process. Beer produced using the "bottom" fermentation process is called lager.)].
- Coffee and Croissant
- According to legend, coffee beans were first discovered in the town of Kaffa, Ethiopia. As the advancing Arabs had cut off access to Ethiopia (known then as Abyssinia) by the Eighth Century A.D., it first made its way into Arabic as qahwah. By the thirteenth century, the Kaffa beans were brought into southern Mediterranean Europe as cafe. It would take a failed seige of Vienna in the latter half of the Seventeenth Century by the advancing Ottoman Turks to introduce the term and the beverage into German-speaking Europe as Kaffee.
Apparently, the Turks had retreated in such haste (according to Austrians–Turks, of course, describe it as a calculated withdrawal) that they left behind, among other things, sacks and sacks of coffee beans; as a result, the Austrians were introduced to coffee and, incidentally, celebrated the event by enjoying a certain puffed pastry created especially for the occasion: the “croissant” or “crescent” (to symbolize victory over the Turks whose flags bore a crescent moon)(The term croissant was used instead of the literal German translation Halbmond or the German culinary term currently in use, Hoernchen, because at the time French was the language en vogue within aristocratic circles due to the prominence of the French King Louis XIV.). More (unconfirmed): By Imperial Decree the bakers were allowed to bake a new fangeled piece of pastry, which they called “Kipfel” or “Hoernchen”, but you did not mention the reason. The Turks got desperate after a long siege & tried to get into the city by tunneling under the walls at night. The bakers who started their work at 2 AM heard suspicious noises & alarmed the forces & the plot was discovered & so the Turks had to give up and leave
