Rédey Judit: Hideg nyalat és spanyol tekercs. A fagylalt, a jégkrém és a parfé története (Budapest, 2007)

Catherine de Medici in the 16'

h century, and one member of his family had already rented the house where Coltelli later opened his business. As for his person, his marriage certificate is the first authentic document dating to 1675. He signed as a trade vendor or merchant in his marriage certificate, while later on, in the certificates of his children's baptism in 1677, he is mentioned as a "lemonade vendor," and even later as a "lemonade maestro." A 1676 decree authorized lemonade vendors to sell the exotic cool drinks that had newly came into vogue. Procope was one of the first to take advantage of this opportunity. His success could partly be attributed to the fact that those times saw a large Italian community in Pans with a significant influence, and the French then held everything Italian fashionable. (During those times, the French language also adopted a lot of words from Italian). Legend has it that Procope first attempted to freeze lemonade, which was the first lemon ice cream. The Maestro had a great success; his assets and his social standing grew and grew. He became a French citizen in 1684, and founded the Café Procope in 1686, which is the world's oldest coffee shop still standing. Parisians could taste ice cream at that establishment the first time, and they soon developed a passion for it. The Café acquired an all-European fame when the actors and actresses from the opposing Comédie Française chose it as their lavorite hangout. Its aristocratic décor also attracted guests, full of crystal chandeliers, marble tables and mirrors everywhere - which was a novelty for a public place in those times. Procope sold not only coffee and ice cream (at first, in only a couple of flavors), but all sorts of novel delicacies also. He sold tea, chocolate, spice drinks, maraschino (a special sweet liquor brewed from Dalmatian maraschino cherries) flavored with peach fragrance, exotic wines, sweet liquors made with cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, sweetened with sugar, called Venus's oil. Master Procope finally purchased the two buildings he had rented, in 1695 and 1699. After the death of his wife, he remarried in 1697, taking the hand of a noblewoman, Anne-François de Vaulier, and in the same year he was awarded the title of nobility himself. He passed on his business to his son Alexandre in 1716. When Alexander died in 1753, the family ceased to own the café, and it decayed after two further owners in 1770, when the Comédie Française went bankrupt. The Café owed its second period of flourish expressly to ice cream, which then became a vogue all over France, again thanks to Italian confectioners. The new owner of the Procope was an Italian coffee seller named Zoppi. The menu of the Cale m 1782 already offered 80 different ice creams and sherbets. Dames and cavaliers wanting to enjoy a little cold could choose from among ice creams with flavors of rose, peach, vanilla, chestnuts, walnuts, chocolate, pineapple and many more. Díszes holipnitartó Ornamented waffle stick holder