"Cappuccino" & San Francisco's Fred Landi

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

    Fred Landi is officially in obscurity.  An internet check of his name
with "cappuccino" turns up nothing at all.
    From the Peter Tamony papers (Univ. of Missouri-Columbia), SAN FRANCISCO
EXAMINER, 3 August 1963:

_OBITUARIES_
_Fred C. Landi_
_Of Tosca Cafe_
     A sombre black wreath on the door at 242 Columbus Ave. yesterday was
mute witness to the fact that North Beach had lost one of its favorite people.
     Fred C. Landi, operator of the Tosca Cafe, and the man who invented
cappuccino, is dead.
     Mr. Landi died Thursday at Notre Dame Hospital after a long illness.  He
was 67.
     The genial host, known to literally thousands of San Franciscans, had
been in the restaurant and bar business for more than 20 years.
     During that time he served numberless glasses (Glasses had
numbers?--ed.) of his invention cappuccino, which consists of two spoonfuls
of chocolate, three ounces of milk, a jet of steam from an expresso
(Espresso?--ed.) machine, and a lacing of brandy.
     Mr. Landi invented cappuccino in 1938.  The name comes from the color of
the drink, which is, in Mr. Landi's words "gray as the robe of a Capuchin
monk."
     With cappuccino, of course, the knowledgeable Tosca patron nibbles
cialde, a cooky made of pastry flour, eggs, butter, sugar and anise seed.
     Under Mr. Landi's direction, the Tosca, which was for some years located
at 312 Columbus, became a favored late-night gathering place for a wide
variety of San Franciscans.
     Mr. Landi is survived by his widow, Theresa, of 2823 Broderick St., and
son, Albert, who has been working at the Tosca for several years.
     Funeral services will be held at 9 a.m. today from the chapel of
Valente-Marini-Perata, 649 Green St., followed by a Requiem Mass at 9:30 a.m.
at SS. Peter and Paul Church.  Entombment will be at Holy Cross Cemetery.

    Perhaps the Tosca still exists?  Perhaps his son Albert Landi is still
alive and I can sit down with him over a cup of coffee?
    Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK:  "The drink is
supposedly named after a Capuchin monk in whose garden coffee was grown in
Brazil in 1774.  Others say the name derives from the drink's resemblance to
the tonsured heads of Capuchin monks.  The word is first found in American
print in 1948."
    Also from the Peter Tamony papers is the SAN FRANCISCO CALL-BULLETIN, 1
May 1946, pg. B1-2, "Memo From Mac" by Jack S. McDowell:

     For some time now, a couple of big shiny boilers have saught our eye as
we walked past a place called Tosca at 312 Columbus avenue.  So, during one
of our North Beach expeditions the other day, we decided to drop in and
investigate.
     From a genial bartender named Dino Cheleni we not only learned that they
were made in Milan, Italy, and are the only such gadgets in the West, but we
received a full-dress demonstration.
     The boilers, it develops, are two-purpose machines used to manufacture
by steam such things as coffees royal and a rare concoction which Proprietors
Hugo Pieri and Fred Landi call cappuccino in honor of some Italian monks who
wear no socks.
     Nobody quite succeeded in getting over to us just what the connection
with the sockless monks might be.  But they showed us some pictures of monks
on the glasses, and we let it go at that.
     To turn out a coffee royal, Mr. Cheleni placed some finely ground coffee
in a whatzit that clamps onto one of the boilers.  Then he whirled a valve
that sent steam hissing into said whatzit and coffee began dropping out of
the bottom into a glass.  The coffee graduated to royal status a moment later
when Mr. Cheleni did things with a jolt of brandy and a lemon peel.
     WIth that lesson out of the way, Professor Cheleni began to go into his
cappuccino routine.  To whip up one of these drinks, our instructor became
something of a cross between a steam engineer and a chef.
     Into a thick glass went a spoonful of ground chocolate.  Then some hot
water from the boiler.  Next a couple of jiggers of milk.
     The maestro of the machinery then lifted the whole business up to a long
nozzle affair on the side of the boiler and whirled another wheel.  Live
steam began shooting out in three places from the nozzle, hissing and
gurgling like a wounded locomotive.
     Mr. Cheleni then administered a transfusion from a brandy bottle and the
concoction--tasting something like a wedding of hot chocolate and Tom and
Jerry--was ready for drinking.
     While Mr. Cheleni was busy turning valves and such, Professor Pieri
informed us that one of the boilers has been in operation in his
establishment for twenty-six years, but that for the first sixteen years it
was devoted to the steam production of coffee.  Ten years ago (1936 or
1938?--ed.) he and his partner went into the cappuccino business, soon sent
to Italy for the second boiler, and now use up between twenty-five and thirty
quarts of milk a day to keep the cappuccino production line rolling.
     Mr. Cheleni interrupted to inform us, with no little pride, that the
name cappuccino is patented and among the better-known cappuccino fans are
such Hollywood stars as Dolores Del Rio and Greer Garson who drop in for a
boost from the boiler when they are in town.
     After pursuing our cappuccino studies for some time, Mr. Cheleni
inquired whether we wanted him to build another, just so we'd be sure that we
understood how it is done.
     "Thanks, anyway," we told him, "but if we don't go back to the office
now we'll never get our wrolumn critten (sic)."

    "Cappuccino" is patented?  Can anyone find that out?  How come no one
knows this?