A world full of coffee shops flooded with milk. Where there are only blonde, medium and dark roasts, the dairy selection boasts cow milk, soy milk, almond milk, cashew milk, oat milk, hemp milk, and coconut milk. Where coffee can be prepared as a pour over, espresso, in the pot, or cold brew, milk comes steamed and frothed, creamy or powdered, condensed in a can (if you’re Vietnamese) or curdled into cheese (if you’re Swedish), and even churned into butter. Our coffee is drowning in dairy.
Drowning indeed, so let the coffee get its revenge. In the great Italian tradition of la vendetta one unsuspecting café offering turns the tables: the affogato. An icon of the gleaming, steam-punk age of espresso behemoths, the name literally translated as ‘drowned.’ This time, the dairy drowns in the coffee.
Simply put, the affogato is a scoop of ice cream, gelado, or fior di latte (a simple cheese made from fresh milk), assaulted by a hot and bitter pour of espresso. Some serve it with a swirl of amaretto while others make it more youthful by subbing the coffee for hot chocolate. More traditionally, a swallow of strong grappa is mixed in as a version of an espresso correto with the addition of ice cream.
The affogato is best served with little ceremony–honoring its two ingredients without distracting from the point–-the contrast within the drink before you. A drinkable pun on the term bittersweet. A dichotomy between hot and cold. The states of matter clashing in liquid and solid. The yin and the yang of vanilla and coffee. A dietician’s qualm between drink and dessert. Your daily cup of coffee is transformed with a scoop of ice cream.
And after the meal, the waiter asks, “Any coffee or dessert?” Someone orders both and the waiter makes a delicious blunder. Espresso drools from some shining stainless steel tower that must have come from Italy during times of historical migration. A plop of ice cream dragged from a display cooler with a belly of curved glass and chrome detailing. In a mug, any old mug, the two duel it out.
The heat of the fresh espresso nearly sublimates the ice cream into an airy, white foam. The cool core of the scoop dissipates the coffee’s scald. Each bitter molecule donning a sweet jacket to insulate itself from the insulting cold. The creamy dairy runs out in miniscule deltas of muddy milk. Black and white, hot and cold, bitter and sweet vying for supremacy as you sip and spoon ambiguous states of matter into your hungry mouth. After a bit, homogeneity. A room temperature beige drink with something reminiscent of the fluff of ice cream and the bite of espresso.
Coffee taken with milk and sugar is not so different from coffee taken with ice cream. The difference is the drama present in the affogato which elevates it from the mundane cup of joe.
All civilizations must develop methods of storing water. Tribes across the American Southwest used baskets for the purpose. Using local materials, native peoples would weave baskets with long necks and then coat the inside with pitch from asphalt or tree resin. These water bottle baskets have been used for thousands of years.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area has a large South Asian population. Jumping between grocery stores, bakeries, and restaurants there are plenty of Indian drinks available, especially ones made with dairy. There is chaas and lassi, yogurt drink and masala buttermilk. Each of these drinks tastes entirely unique.
Beef Tea. Perhaps an idea that has never crossed your mind, but also a familiar pantry item. Doctors during the 1800s regularly gave patients beef tea, an infusion of water, beef, and salt. The drink was supposed to help sick patients recover and eventually opened the market to a variety of “meat extract” products for the health. In reality, it was just a kind of beef broth.
Mexican history suggests that the Clarisa nuns of Puebla invented rompope, a rum infused eggnog that is common throughout Mexico. But, when you visit Puebla, it is hard to find eggnog made by these nuns. Many commercial brands of eggnog have donned religious images to sell their products in reference to the history of the drink. Still, some nuns uphold the tradition.