Thread by @TomValletti

Important THREAD on the etymology of CAPPUCCINO.

First the spelling. It’s not capacino, capucino, capucinno, etc.
It's CAPPUCCINO (singular), 2P’s, 2 C’s, 1N. CAPPUCCINI (plural), still 2P’s 2C’s, 1N.

Second the etiquette. 1/

You don’t drink it after noon. You don’t order it after lunch, let alone after dinner. And absolutely terrible to drink it DURING a meal (I feel bad just at the thought of it). You don’t drink it in a plastic cup. You don’t drink it on the go. You don’t drink it with a straw. 2/

(Personal note: I split up with a British girlfriend when I tried to explain all this, observing in shock that the table next to ours had just ordered Hawaiian pizza (the horror!) and cappuccino at 10pm. Obviously the relationship was not going very well.) 3/

There may be the exceptions. For instance, you had an eventful night, a slow waking up, so cappuccino & cornetto (croissant) is the first thing you have in the day. People will recognise from your look it was one of those nights, and won’t disapprove your choice, even at 3pm. 4/

Cornetto & cappuccino reminds me of Nanni Loy that introduced the first (hidden) candid cameras in the 60s. He would go in cafés and do ‘zuppetta’: he would dip his croissant in the cappuccino of random people. Hilarious (and unthinkable now). 5/

Now to the etymology. The name comes from Latin Caputium, later modified into Kapuziner in Austrian/German. It refers to the Capuchin friars. Since ‘cappuccino’ is the diminutive form of ‘cappuccio’ in Italian, meaning ‘hood’ or something that covers the head, some people... 6/

...are mislead to believe cappuccino literally means ‘small hood’. But NO! It refers to the COLOUR of the habits of Capuchin friars. It is believed that the Capuchin friar, Marco d'Aviano, was the inspiration for it – he was a confident to Emperor Leopold I in Vienna. 7/

It was by the First World War a common coffee drink in cafés in parts of northern Italy which at that time belonged to Austria.

It is somewhat easy for the non-initiated to confound it with ‘latte macchiato’ or ‘caffe’ schiumato’. But this deserved another thread. FIN/CIAO