Rome

Storey, Glenn R. (1997). "The population of ancient Rome" (PDF). Antiquity. 71 (274): 966–978. Retrieved 30 May 2024.

According to connoisseurs

In a paper for the 2013 Oxford Food Symposium, Tan and Bursa identified the features of the art or craft of making and serving Turkish coffee, according to the traditional procedures:

• Roasting. Ideally the best green Arabica beans are medium-roasted in small quantities over steady heat in a shallow, wrought-iron roasting pan. It is crucial to stop at the right moment, then transfer the beans to the next stage:

• Cooling. The beans are allowed to cool down in a wooden box and absorb excess oil. The kind of wood is claimed to affect the taste, walnut being the best.

• Pounding or grinding. The beans must be reduced into a very fine powder. The fineness of the powder is crucial to the success of Turkish coffee since it affects the foam and mouth feel. (According to one source, ^[1]: 218 the particle size should be 75-125 microns.) Strict connoisseurs insist that they must be hand-pounded in a wooden mortar, although it is difficult to do this while achieving an uniform fineness. Consequently it has become more usual to grind them in a brass or copper mill, though it does make for drier particles.

• Brewing. It is essential to use a proper cezve. This vessel is a conical flask, being wider at the base than at the neck, and is made of thick forged copper. (A common sized cezve will make one cup of coffee, and they can easily be ordered online in many western countries.) Cold water, several teaspoons of the ground coffee (at least 7 grams per person) ^[1]: 219 and any sugar are put in the cezve and it is put on the fire. The tapering shape of the vessel encourages the formation of foam and retains the volatile aromas. The coffee should never be allowed to come to a rolling boil, and must not be over-done. "This stage requires close monitoring and delicate timing since a good Turkish coffee has the thickest possible layer of froth at the top". Some think that the metallic copper helps tp improve the taste.

• Serving. The cezve has a spout by which it is poured into the serving cup. While the cup design might not seem to have anything to do with the taste of the beverage, connoisseurs say it makes a difference. The best cups are made of porcelain with a thin rim: it affects mouth feel A long cultural tradition emphasises the pleasure of being served coffee in beautiful cups, which are family heirlooms. The beverage is served together with a glass of water which should be sipped first to cleanse the mouth. Other cultural traditions affect the guest's appreciation of the beverage and the conviviality of the occasion, including story-telling, fortune-telling, and so forth.

While some of these stages may be curtailed in modern coffee drinking, for example the coffee might be purchased already roasted and ground, the rituals and paraphernalia (e.g. the anticipatory smell of the roasting beans) do act on the imagination and have a psychological effect. ^[2]

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La pelota era un barco improvisado de cuero utilizado en América del Sur y Central para cruzar ríos. Era similar en algunos aspectos al bull boat (bote de cuero) de América del Norte o al coracle de las Islas Británicas, pero a menudo no tenía armazón de madera ni estructura de soporte interna, y dependía enteramente de la rigidez del cuero para mantenerlo a flote. Por lo tanto, podía transportarse a caballo y montarse rápidamente en caso de emergencia, y era una habilidad rural común. El barco era remolcado por un animal o un nadador humano, siendo las mujeres consideradas especialmente diestras. Las pelotas podían transportar cargas sustanciales (lo común era alrededor de un cuarto de tonelada) e incluso pequeñas piezas de artillería. Continuaron utilizándose hasta bien entrado el siglo XX.

Necesidad

General Manuel Belgrano recalled taking a small revolutionary army across the Corriente River in 1811 with nothing but two bad canoes and some pelotas. The river was about a cuadra (80 metres) wide, and unfordable. He noted that most of his men knew how to use a pelota, implying that it was standard rural knowhow. ^[3]

Not all countrymen knew how to swim, however: it depended on the region. The cavalry troopers of General Paz were from the Province of Corrientes, where everyone did. Crossing a river at night, holding on to the mains or tails of their swimming horses - their arms, ammunition, uniforms and saddles safely dry in pelotas, which they had improvised from rawhide saddle blankets - they surprised and defeated the enemy at the Battle of Caaguazú. ^[4]

Valle Cabral, Alfredo do (1877). "Noticia das obras manuscritas e inéditas relativas á viajem philosophica do Dr. Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira, pelas capitanias do Grâo-Pará, Rio-Negro, Matto Grosso e Cuyabá (1783-1792)". Annaes da Bibliotheca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro (in Portuguese). Vol. III. Retrieved 17 May 2024.

at 350-1

Pimenta Bueno, Francisco Antonio. Memoria justificativa dos trabalhos de que foi encarregado à provincia de Matto Grosso (in Portuguese). Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional. Retrieved 17 May 2024.

Mansilla, Lucio V. (1875). Reglamento para el ejercicio y maniobras de la infantería del Ejército Argentino (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Imprenta y Librerías de Mayo. Retrieved 16 May 2024.

Chialchia de Contreras, Amalia Nélida; Contreras Roqué, Julio Rafael (2005). "El primer contacto de don Félix de Azara con la naturaleza del área guaranítica". Tras las huellas de Félix de Azara (in Spanish). Madrid-Huesca: Primeras Jornadas Azarianas. pp. 104–128. Retrieved 18 May 2024.

• Chome, Father, S.J. (1756). "Carta del Padre Chome S.J. al Padre Vanthiennen S.J., 26 Septiembre de 1730". Cartas edificantes, y curiosas, escritas de las missiones estrangeras, y de levante por algunos missioneros de la Compañia de Jesus (in Spanish). Vol. XIII. Translated by Diego Davin. Madrid: Imprenta de la Viuda de Manuel Fernandez, y del Supremo Consejo de la Inquisicion. Retrieved 19 May 2024.{{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)

• Bosé, Walter B.L. (1966). "Las postas en las provincias del Norte y Cuyo en la época del Congreso de Tucumán" (PDF). Memoria Académica. 15: 107–134. Retrieved 20 May 2024.

• Taunay, Alfredo d'Escragnolle (1868). Scenas de Viagem: Exploraçāo entre os rios Taquary e Aquidauna no districto do Miranda (in Portuguese). Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Americana. Retrieved 23 May 2024.

pp. 37, 39, 54, 168-9

• Azara, Félix de (1907). "Viajes Inéditos". In Estanislao Zeballos (ed.). Tras la huellas de Félix de Azara (in Spanish).

=Fuentes Information

Echevarría, Cecilio; Contreras, Ramón (1875). Informe acerca de la provincia de Corrientes presentado a la comisión directiva de la Exposición Nacional de Córdoba en 1871. Buenos Aires. Retrieved 15 May 2024.{{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( link)

Professional pelota towers

The Spanish Empire established a postal service linking Buenos Aires in the Atlantic world with Lima in the Pacific. At intervals along this 3,000 mile route, posts were set up at where fresh horses could be obtained and there was (very) basic sleeping accommodation. These posts were often beside rivers. At each place a person was put in charge who got no salary but was rewarded with valuable legal exemptions. Private voyagers were encouraged to travel with the mail, being forbidden to take their own horses. ^[5]

Where the rivers were too deep to be forded the postal service appointed pasadores whose function was to carry passengers and mail across in pelotas. They were not allowed to charge much for the mail but were able to recoup themselves from the private travellers. ^[6] Thus, at some places there were official pelota towers - persons who swam across rivers and pulled the boat with their teeth - whose charges were regulated by law. ^[7]

The most notable crossing was at the Río del Pasage (today called the Juramento River), which lay on the road between Tucumán and Salta. It could be forded quite easily in the dry season, but when the waters rose it grew wide and deep, with strong currents and eventually, turbulent waves. An artillery officer wrote that the river brought down logs that endangered pelota and swimmer alike; the latter had to be adept to dodge them. He recorded that the service was still functioning in 1833, despite the need for a bridge, for none had been built owing to bureaucratic inertia. ^[8] At this spot Indian women were celebrated pelota towers. ^[9] It is not clear when the service ceased to function.

Pelotas in reality, and in European art

Surviving images of pelotas drawn by European artists always depict them with some form of wooden bracing, as if they assumed one must be necessary to give them rigidity. Verbal descriptions by reputable observers, like Azara or Dobrizhoffer, make it clear they seldom possessed one; it would have defeated the object

Rosas

Shumway, Jeffrey. "A veces saber olvidar es también tener memoria”: La repatriación de Juan Manuel de Rosas, el menemismo, y las heridas de la memoria Argentina." O. Barreneche y A. Bisso (Comps.), El tiempo pasa, la historia queda. Ayer, hoy y mañana son contemporáneos (2010): 93-132.

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1. "Paraguayan War" is the preferred usage in the English language, certainly in serious scholarly writing.

The JSTOR library is a database of nearly all recent high-quality scholarly articles in the English language. The facts speak for themselves:

(Source: JSTOR, interrogation of search engine provided, 29 April 2024, all articles.)

The larger (albeit lower quality) Google Scholar database paints a broadly similar picture:

Likewise, there are clearly more books with "Paraguayan War" in the title, than "War of the Triple Alliance. (Source: Google Books, interrogate intitle:field.)

2. The 1864-1870 war is little known outside South America. ^[10] By itself, the title "War of the Triple Alliance" doesn't tell the international reader anything. Which triple alliance? There have been quite a few in human history. To suppose "Triple Alliance", without context, must mean the South American one, is parochial. "Paraguayan War" at least points the reader to the right continent.

3. The title "War of the Triple Alliance" can be ideologically loaded. It was increasingly hijacked by the revisionists of the 1970s, with their conspiracy theories of an invisible plot to "get" Paraguay. But it was the war that caused the triple alliance, not the other way round. The war actually began and developed in 1864, between Paraguay and Brazil alone; there was no triple alliance then, just a Paraguayan army sacking the Mato Grosso's capital. Not until after Argentina's province of Corrientes was invaded in April 1865 did Argentina make an alliance with Brazil - its traditional enemy. ^{[11]: 260, 358}