|
Ever since its migration from north-east
Africa to Arabia many hundreds of years ago, this vital bean has played
a multifaceted role in molding history. That short hop across the Red
Sea helped alter social, political and economic life not only in Africa
and the Middle East, but in mainland Europe, Britain and the Americas
too. Coffee has made the fortunes and misfortunes of many, oiled the
wheels of communication, inspired creative minds, stimulated the tired,
and, for countless imbibers the world over, become a daily necessity.
Myths and Mysteries
So great was the mystique ascribed to
coffee, that conjecture over the who, how and when of the invention of
the beverage and the discovery of its properties was intense. Doctors,
lawyers, poets and philosophers all had their pet theories and great
kudos was linked to association with the so-called "discovery". As a
result, in medieval Arabia and later in 17th-Century Europe, stories and
legends were rife.
Parched Corn or Black Broth
Those with a historical bent and a
lively imagination traced the bean back to Old Testament tales, claiming
that it was the same "parched corn" that Abigail gave to David, and Boaz
to Ruth. Many were convinced it was the "black broth" of the
Lacedoemonians, as the Spartans were then called. Petrus de Valle, a
well-known Italian traveler, believed that coffee dated as far back as
the Trojan war, suggesting that "the fair Helen with other ladies of
Priamus's Court, used sometimes to drown the Thoughts of the Calamities
she had brought upon her Family and Country, in a Pot or Coffee". Others
thought that, in Homer's Odyssey, the substance called "nepenthes",
which Helen mixed with wine and which "banishes sadness and wrath from
the heart" was coffee.
Banesius, a late 18th-century writer,
theorized in a treatise on coffee that since it was a medicine and most
medicines were discovered by chance, the discovery of "this Liquor was
as much a proof of fortuitous experience as any of those (other
medicines)".
Following this line of thought,
Banesius went on to recount the ubiquitous fable of the dancing goats,
in which an Arab or Ethiopian goatherd complained to the Imam of a
neighboring monastery that his flock "two or three times a week not only
kept awake all night long but spent it frisking and dancing in an
unusual manner". The Imam, concluding that the animals may have eaten
something that was causing the reaction, went to the pasture where they
danced. Here he found berries growing on shrubs and he decided to try
them himself.
Having boiled the berries in water and
drunk the resulting brew, the Imam found that he was able to stay awake
at night without any ill effects. Encouraged by what had been an
enjoyable experience, he "encouraged the daily use of it to his Monks,
which, by keeping them from sleep, made them more readily and surely
attend the devotions they were obliged to perform at night time. It
continued to keep them in perfect health and by this means it came to be
in request throughout that whole kingdom".
|