That Coffee

A dark roast of coffee, preferably freshly roasted, should be used. The beans are placed in a cylindrical brass coffee mill (mlin) and ground to a fine powder. Muscular non-Balkan males will be astounded by the effort required and the aplomb with which Balkan females grind up the required amount. Usually, one ordinary mlin filled to capacity will provide enough coffee for one standard coffee-pot and will serve 4-6 persons. When the coffee is ground, or while it is being ground, fill a standard coffee-pot with water. This pot (džezva) is made of copper, in the shape of a truncated cone with flaring lip and a long brass handle. The standard one is about 9 cm high, 8 cm in diameter at the base, and holds about 225 ml. Pour off enough water from the džezva to fill one small coffee-cup (fildžan, about 60 ml capacity). If sugar is to be used, add it to the cold water (to the pot), one teaspoon per fildžan (again the small cup); if this much is used, the coffee will be Bosnian coffee; if less, Serbian. Bring the water to a fast boil, preferably over an electric fire (charcoal was used formerly, but has gone out of fashion). When the water boils, remove the pot from the fire and add the contents of the mlin to the standard džezva. (This works out to about 175 ml, 10 tsp powdered coffee.) Stir. Place the džezva back on the fire and allow to come to a boil, removing quickly to prevent the froth from overflowing. Repeat this twice more. The grounds may be settled by pouring in the cup of cold water that has been kept aside, but this must be done so as not to disturb the froth (kajmak) on the coffee. When in doubt, do not pour in the cold water but wait for the grounds to settle; do not, however wait too long or the kajmak will disappear. Pour a little kajmak in each fildžan. Then pour the coffee out into the fildžani, floating the kajmak. Drink.

One does not ordinarily eat with this coffee. However, it is not uncommon to take a glass of fruit-juice or a plum brandy (rakija) as an accompaniment.

Epilogue, 1996
Most people in Bosnia have not smelled fresh coffee for three years. Many have been drinking an acorn brew. 'Bosnian' coffee is much the same drink in Croatia, in Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, even Kosovo and Albania, although perhaps with a bit more sugar. It is one of the things shared by Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims, not only as a recipe but as a shared pot at one table, just as many elements of these cultures were shared....

[from E. Hammel "Bosnian Coffee."
all stringy italicisation (my own) stands in for (mine, insufferable) foot/notes to various passages: the commentary i have beat back into submissive non-existence, given that it would merely cloud what can run and strike better by itself.]

______________________________
who are you, Eugene Hammel, and how do you know so much?

if i came to Berkeley post-haste (by which i mean: autumn 2007) and told you how you have written the recipe of my soul in the simple declarative style i cannot seem to master, if i wasn't even in your former department and if i revealed all of my secret interdisciplinarimost thoughts at our first meeting—would you still marry me? or be my surrogate grandfather?