http://www.straightdope.com/ Straight Dope, new and classic en http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3356/who-first-figured-out-how-to-make-coffee <div id="article"><div id="current_illustration"><img src="http://www.straightdope.com/images/art/2017/dope_170901_coffee_online.gif" /></div><h1>Who first figured out how to make coffee?</h1><div class="date"> September 1, 2017 </div><p class="question salutation">Dear Cecil:</p><p class="question">Coffee: let's grow this plant, pick the berries, take the seeds out, roast and then grind the beans, pour hot water through the grounds, and throw the beans away. Drink the water! How did we get there?</p><p class="question byline">— Old Blue Eyes</p><p class="answer salutation">Cecil replies:</p><p class="answer">Remember Solomon, OBE? Wise and just, son of David, king of Israel, etc? He’s who did it, according to one 17th-century Arab writer. The story goes that Solomon encountered a plague-struck village and was counseled by the angel Gabriel to roast coffee beans — anticipating the single-origin craze, Gabriel specified beans sourced from Yemen — and soak them in hot water. He gave the resulting beverage to the villagers, curing them. Despite coffee’s proven miraculous qualities, this version of history has it then falling off everyone’s radars for a couple millennia, till about the 16th century.</p><p class="answer">OK, maybe not the most convincing. But Yemen and the 16th century, or thereabouts, are where coffee actually begins to show up in the (non-scriptural) record. We pause to note, first, that these folks certainly weren’t the first to come up with the idea of immersing vegetable matter in water and consuming the results. I’d propose that’s just one of those things humans wind up thinking of over time, if only because they’re bored; when the coffee craze first swept the Gulf of Aden, the Chinese had been brewing tea for centuries. You could similarly look at the practice of grinding grain, adding water, and exposing the resulting dough to heat — i.e., <a class=",Question Text" href="../../../columns/read/3349/how-did-bread-get-invented">making bread</a>, which I wrote about back in July. An unlikely process at first glance, but if you’ve got a sheaf of wheat and a need for nutrition, you’ll figure it out eventually.</p><p class="answer">Coffee is nutritionally useless, though — what need could it have been filling? This is where the era and locale come into play: some convincing histories place coffee’s emergence in Yemeni communities of Sufis, members of a Muslim sect, who allegedly discovered that drinking it helped them stay awake during long religious ceremonies. There are a number of competing stories here and no small amount of lore, but if you squint hard enough you can see the rough outline of a narrative: coffee trees grow wild in this part of the world; somebody decided to see how their seeds tasted and realized that, taste notwithstanding, they make you feel good; thus are caffeine addictions born. It probably didn’t hurt that this was a region famous for the stimulant khat, which are leaves people chew on; there pre-existed a local enthusiasm for getting a buzz off plants.</p><p class="answer">Various of these stories are laid out in the 1985 book <em>Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East</em>, by historian Ralph Hattox. Hattox doesn’t even mention the first tale you’ll likely come across if you do any searching: one about an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi, who observed his flock becoming particularly animated after nibbling on a certain bush. After trying it himself, Kaldi shared his find with a local imam, who dried the beans and took to steeping them in hot water whenever he needed to pull an all-nighter down at the mosque.</p><p class="answer">Apocryphal for sure, but the accounts Hattox does relate support the idea of coffee being an agrarian discovery embraced by Sufi Muslims; he finds one story, for instance, of a notable Yemeni Sufi known as al-Dhabhani, who sometime in the 1400s traveled to Ethiopia and, there discovering coffee, brought some back to Aden and shared it with his co-religionists. This story also contains “more than a bit of legend,” Hattox concedes, and is complicated even by the language employed: Dhabhani is said to have encountered people in Ethiopia “using” (i.e., not “drinking”) what the 16th-century writer recounting these events called <em>qahwa</em>, leaving it unclear whether they were brewing it or chewing on it, a la khat. Evidence on the side of brewing is provided by the word <em>qahwa</em> itself, a term that previously had sometimes referred to wine, another mood-altering drink.</p><p class="answer">Still, that or something like it is about as close as we’re going to get: though we don’t know the play-by-play, we know roughly where coffee drinking caught on (Yemen, perhaps running with an Ethiopian concept) and when (the mid-15th century), as well as the religious tradition that midwifed it. A little note on that: In Yemen, the drink ran into early contention over whether it was even acceptable by the standards of the Quran. The prophet Muhammad, you’ll recall, forbade his followers from getting intoxicated, and when coffee made its way to Mecca, in the early 1500s, it sparked a debate: was caffeine an intoxicant? In 1511 a local religious leader “literally put coffee on trial,” writes Tom Standage in <em>A History of the World in 6 Glasses</em> (2005): “He convened a council of legal experts and placed the accused — a large vessel of coffee — before them.”</p><p class="answer">After talking it over they decided coffee was indeed an intoxicant, and therefore <em>haram,</em> and the drink was banned — burned in the streets, Standage reports, its vendors beaten. Within months, though, a higher council overturned the ruling. Apparently cooler heads had prevailed in the interim; maybe everyone switched to decaf.</p><p class="answer byline">— <span class="name">Cecil Adams</span></p><p class="answer byline">Send questions to Cecil via <a href="mailto:cecil@straightdope.com">cecil@straightdope.com</a>.</p></div> http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3356/who-first-figured-out-how-to-make-coffee http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1424/why-are-brides-supposed-to-wear-something-old-something-new-etc <div id="article"><div id="description"> A Staff Report from the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board </div><h1>Why are brides supposed to wear "something old, something new," etc.?</h1><div class="date"> August 31, 1999 </div><p class="question salutation">Dear Straight Dope:</p><p class="question">My cousin Leslie is being married in two days, and so I would like to know the origin of this bridal custom: Why is it that the bride is enjoined to wear "something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue"? Also, why does one congratulate the groom, but give best wishes to the bride?</p><p class="question">You are doing a fabulous job for the advancement of the knowledge of Modern Humans. Fight on!</p><p class="question byline">— Matthew McLauchlin, Westmount, Quebec</p><p class="answer salutation">SDStaff Songbird replies:</p><p class="answer">"Enjoin" is rather a strong word, Matthew. If you were at all involved in your cousin Leslie's wedding, you know that no one <em>orders</em> the bride around. But many brides <em>are</em> cautious (let's not say superstitious) and keep with many traditions … just to be on the safe side.</p><p class="answer">This Victorian good-luck saying started with a poem penned by the infamous poet, Anonymous: "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe." (You can find this poem in Leslie Jones' book "Happy is the Bride the Sun Shines On.")</p><p class="answer">"Something Old" stands for continuity, something linking the bride to her family and her past. Many brides choose a piece of antique family jewelry or mother's wedding gown. "Something New" represents optimism for the future: good fortune and success in the bride's new life. This can be a new gown, veil, etc. "Something Borrowed" is to remind the bride that friends and family will be there for her when help is needed. Often the borrowed item is a lace handkerchief, a necklace or the like. "Something Blue" stands for fidelity, loyalty and love: most often the bride's garter or floral bouquet has a touch of blue. And the "Silver Sixpence in her Shoe" is to wish the bride wealth: sixpence aren't common around here, so an old dime is often substituted.</p><p class="answer">Other wedding day superstitions include: it's lucky to tear your wedding gown accidentally; it's good luck to find a spider on your dress at any time during the day; it's good luck to tear your veil, even deliberately, though accidentally is best; a good bridesmaid may ensure the bride's happiness by sticking her in the arm with a pin.</p><p class="answer">Frankly, these sound more like ways to make the wedding day's inevitable mistakes sound like good luck charms and calm that jumpy bride.  But that's just the icing on the wedding cake. Here's a sample of some other archaic wedding notions:</p><ul><li>Sew a piece of hair into the bride's gown for good luck and a quick marriage. In 1947, newspapers reported that the seamstresses who made Queen (then Princess) Elizabeth's wedding gown each sewed a strand of their hair into it.</li><li>The bride must stand on the left of the groom. This practice began in medieval times when the groom would hold a weapon in his right hand to fend off the bride's angry family (why they were angry is another story).</li><li>Bridesmaids fend off evil spirits. In ancient Egyptian society, bridesmaids dressed as extravagantly as the bride did in order to confuse the spirits coming to attack the bride and curse her marriage.</li><li>Congratulate the groom (on a good catch), and give the bride best wishes (she's going to need all the luck she can get). Rather a chauvinistic practice which went hand-in-hand with the pastor's "I now pronounce you man and wife" line. This has mostly been replaced by "husband and wife" (or other more politically correct words), and you can congratulate whomever you wish.</li><li>Break the wedding cake over the bride's head. This practice supposedly signified the bride's fertility. Fortunately, this has evolved into the bride and groom stuffing pieces of wedding cake into each other's mouth.</li><li>Catch the wedding bouquet, then drop it, and you'll be the last to marry rather than the first.</li></ul><p class="answer">And that doesn't include the wedding customs of various cultures. Remind me sometime to tell you about how some couples use a rope cord during the ceremony …</p><p class="answer byline">— <span class="name">SDStaff Songbird, Straight Dope Science Advisory Board</span></p></div> http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1424/why-are-brides-supposed-to-wear-something-old-something-new-etc http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2577/was-boston-once-literally-flooded-with-molasses <div id="article"><div id="current_illustration"><img src="http://www.straightdope.com/images/art/2004/041231.gif" /></div><div id="description"> A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's Storehouse of Human Knowledge </div><h1>Was Boston once literally flooded with molasses?</h1><div class="date"> December 31, 2004 </div><p class="question salutation">Dear Cecil:</p><p class="question">My girlfriend told me that on a recent walking tour of Boston the guide told her about the Boston molasses disaster of 1919. Seemingly a huge tank of molasses crumbled under the tremendous weight, sending a "tidal wave of molasses traveling 35 mph" down the street, where it proceeded to kill tens of people and many horses. A little research on the Internet uncovered that such an event seems to have occurred, but even the most skeptical of Web sites still relates that the molasses moved at 35 mph. In January, no less. My question is: In 1919, how could they have possibly measured that speed? Is it simply another exaggeration in this already hyperbolized story? Is any of it to be believed?</p><p class="question byline">— James, New York</p><p class="answer salutation">Cecil replies:</p><p class="answer">Oh, the great molasses flood definitely happened. Twenty-one people died, 150 were injured, and nearby buildings were reduced to kindling. Molasses traveling at 35 mph in January is impossible, you say? If photos of the aftermath and eyewitness testimony don't change your mind, you can do like me and check with a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After reviewing four pages of calculations, I'd say it's clear that when a 50-foot-tall tank of any liquid gives way, the contents are going to do more than just ooze.</p><p class="answer">The blackstrap deluge was no laughing matter at the time. As the story is told in <em>Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919</em> by Stephen Puleo (2003), the sticky liquid was stored in a massive dockside tank in Boston's crowded North End. Ninety feet in diameter with a capacity of 2.3 million gallons, the tank had been hastily constructed in 1915 by a subsidiary of the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. The firm shipped molasses, a by-product of sugar refining, from Caribbean ports to plants in the U.S., where it was distilled into alcohol, used back then in the manufacture of gunpowder and other munitions. Demand had increased sharply with the outbreak of war in Europe, and USIA hoped to cash in.</p><p class="answer">Construction of the tank had been overseen, or more accurately gazed stupidly at, by Arthur Jell, a bean counter with no technical background who was unable even to read blueprints. Anxious to complete the tank in time for the arrival of the first molasses shipment, Jell forwent the elementary precaution of filling it first with water to test for leaks. Once molasses was pumped in, the tank leaked so copiously at the seams that neighborhood kids collected the drippings in cans. When an alarmed employee complained, Jell's response was to have the tank painted brown so the leaks wouldn't be so noticeable.</p><p class="answer">With the war ending and demand for industrial alcohol plummeting, USIA decided to distill molasses into grain alcohol for liquor before Prohibition killed the market for good. On January 12 and 13, 1919, a tanker filled the huge vessel almost to the brim. Two days later, at about half past noon, the tank gave way with a roar, sending a wave of molasses variously estimated at 8 to 15 feet high in all directions. Many nearby were drowned or crushed when buildings fell on them. A massive hunk of the steel tank was flung into an elevated rail line, collapsing the tracks only seconds after a train had passed. Rescuers were hampered by the knee-high tide of congealing goo; the last victim, a deliveryman, wasn't found for 11 days — he and his truck had been swept into the harbor. For decades afterward it was claimed that central Boston smelled like molasses.</p><p class="answer">How fast did the initial surge of molasses travel? Experts and eyewitnesses agreed on 35 mph, but we needn't take their word for it. I consulted with Gareth McKinley, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, and established that the theoretical maximum rate of flow for a (roughly) 50-foot column of liquid, ignoring density and viscosity, was 38 mph. Surprisingly, molasses's stiffness would have slowed things only a bit — making certain assumptions about Reynolds number and whatnot that I expect some gratitude for not sharing, the flow rate would have been mostly a function of inertia (i.e., mass) rather than viscosity. Bottom line: 35 mph was a pretty good guess.</p><p class="answer">An inquiry found the disaster was due to inadequate construction; USIA paid out more than $600,000 in damages — at least $6.6 million in today's money. The timing gives one pause, though. In September 1918, a few months before the flood, the Red Sox won the World Series, an event that, in light of its subsequent rarity, surely constituted a major disturbance in the force. Now the Red Sox have given fate the finger once more. Come January, Boston fans noticing a distant rumble and a funny smell will have to wonder: Is that just the subway, or is it payback time again?</p><p class="answer byline">— <span class="name">Cecil Adams</span></p></div> http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2577/was-boston-once-literally-flooded-with-molasses