Table of Contents Title Page Dedication Epigraph Praise Introduction: - ON SIN, SEX, AND FOR BIDDEN FOOD LUST First Bite Enveloped in Sweet Odor Likeness of a Roasted Crab Love Apple The Ketchup with a Thousand Faces Venomous Green Tulsi Ki Chai The Ecstasy of Being Eaten The King’s Chocolate Haquetzalli Gay Gourmand Beijing Libido The Rainbow Egg GLUTTONY Original Sin Porcus Troianu Ovis Apalis Cocktails with the Devil The Sultan’s Date Angel Food Cake Saints and Supermodels Bitter Herbs Red Lady The Joy of Fat Mitterrand’s Last Supper PRIDE The Egotist at Dinner The Dirt Eaters A Dinner Party in Kishan Garhi The Last Supper Humble Pie A Prophetic Chicken Impure Indian Corn The Butterfly People Sky Blue Corn Flakes Ghost at the Dinner Table! King’s Cake SLOTH The Job of Eating Well The Wonderful World of English Cookery Toast The Incredibly Sad Tale of Philippe the Shoemaker The Virgin’s Nipples The Root of Laziness Potato Wars The Last Drop In the Green Hour GREED The Greedy Diner Lazy Luscious Land The Magic Cannibal Smoked Green Makaku The Laughing Man Thou Shalt Not Eat Thy Mother Got Milk? American Pigs BLASPHEMY The Sacred Act of Eating The Jewish Pig Dinner with the Spanish Inquisition The Kosher Question The Lawyer in Us Lent Egg A Well-Risen Messiah For What We Are About to Receive O, Dog Holy Cow You and Your Beautiful Hide ANGER The Civilized Sauce The Sadistic Chef Deep-Fried Murder Only if It Has a Face Hitler’s Last Meal Little Nigoda The French Connection Vicious Little Red Man Insanity Popcorn Stinking Infidels Five Angry Vegetables Feasting to the Death THE EIGHTH SIN When Everything Is Allowed and Nothing Has Flavor BIBLIOGRAPHY END NOTES Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Stewart Lee Allen Copyright Page TO NINA J. “The serpent poured upon the fruit the poison of his wickedness, which is Lust, for it is the beginning of every sin—and he bent the branch to the earth and I took of the fruit and I ate.” —Eve as an old woman describing humanity’s last day in Eden The Apocalypse of Moses First century A.D. “Too long, too late, I lost the taste for my own pleasure.” —Marguerite Duras The Lover 1978 Praise for The Devil’s Cup by Stewart Lee Allen “Who knew that the story of coffee was such a fascinating saga of cruelty, madness, obsession, and death? The Devil’s Cup is absolutely riveting, alternating between the informative and the hilarious. Essential reading for foodies, java-junkies, anthropologists, and anyone else interested in funny, sardonically told adventure stories.” —ANTHONY BOURDAIN Author of Kitchen Confidential “Stewart Lee Allen is the Hunter S. Thompson of coffee, offering a wild, caffeinated, gonzo tour of the World of the Magic Bean. His wry, adventurous prose delights, astonishes, amuses, and informs.” —MARK PENDERGRAST Author of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World “Funny as hell. [The Devil’s Cup] whisks the amused reader past Ethiopian bandits, around Parisian waiters, and into aromatic dens from Turkey to Brazil. Good to the last drop.” —MARK ROSENBLUM Author of Olives and Secret Life of the Seine “Delicious . . . A highly stimulating read . . . Allen has created a cracking piece of investigative journalism mixed with entertaining travelogue.” —The List “A terrific read . . . Great fun . . . Allen has as many words for coffee as the Eskimos have for snow. The Devil’s Cup does for coffee what Shogun did for Japan, Geek Love did for freak shows, and Accordion Crimes did for accordions. I’ll never look at my morning brew the same way again.” —JEFF GREENWALD Author of The Size of the World