Cuto founded
Cafe Procope
in
Paris
in 1686.
Some sources say Cuto was born near
Mount Etna
in
Sicily
around the town of
Aci Trezza
.
[1]
[
page?needed
]
[2]
Other sources say he was born at or near
Palermo
.
[3]
A certificate of baptism of 10 February 1651 has been found in the archives of the parish church of one day after his birth that shows his first name as Francesco and his surname as Cuto,
[3]
a common surname in Sicily. A third possibility is that he was born near Palermo and lived in Aci Trezza for a period of time.
[3]
The name Procopio was adopted from the historian
Procopius
, whose
Secret History
, the
Anekdota
, long known of, had been discovered in the Vatican Library and published for the first time ever in 1623: it told the scandals of the Byzantine emperor
Justinian I
, the
empress-consort Theodora
, and his court.
[4]
Cuto received the surname
dei Coltelli
from the French, who mistook his Sicilian family name, as it is a
homophone
of French
couteaux
"knives". Coltelli means "knives" in Italian. Hence, translating back into Italian gives
Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli
, the other name he is known by.
[1]
[
page?needed
]
"Francesco Procopio" are his forenames; Francesco was his grandfather's name.
Cuto married Marguerite Crouin on 26 February 1675 in the
Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris
.
[5]
The marriage record shows the witnesses as his father Onofrio Cuto and his mother Domenica Semarqua. Procopio and Marguerite had eight children during their long marriage before Procopio became a widower in 1696.
[3]
[6]
Cuto played in the
snow
when he was a boy. The snow was mixed with fruit juices and honey to make a type of
sorbet
. This type of "ice cream" was eaten by both rich
aristocrats
and by
peasants
.
[1]
[
page?needed
]
This is where Procopio got the idea of developing
gelato
. Procopio is credited with being the inventor of modern gelato.
[7]
Cuto worked first as a fisherman like his father Onofrio. His grandfather Francesco was also a fisherman from Aci Trezza who built
gelatiere
machines (ice cream makers) part-time, when he was not fishing. Francesco eventually left his invention to his grandson as an inheritance. Cuto tinkered with his grandfather's "ice cream" machine making various improvements and eventually felt that he had developed a machine that would produce gelato on a large scale and decided to promote the new product. He left Sicily and went to France by way of Italy.
[
citation needed
]
Cuto acquired the skills to become a cook, possibly in Palermo on his way to France, arriving in Paris sometime between 1670 and 1674.
[8]
There he joined the
guild
of the
distillateurs-limonadiers
(English:
distiller - soft drinks manufacturers
) and
apprenticed
under the leadership of an
Armenian
immigrant named Pascal who had a kiosk (
la loge de la limonade
, English:
lemonade stand
) on rue de Tournon selling refreshments, including lemonade and coffee.
[9]
[10]
Pascal's attempt at such a business in Paris was not successful and he went to London in 1675, leaving the stall to Cuto.
[11]
[
page?needed
]
Cuto had learned in about 1680 how to make a beverage of ice made of lemonade using salt to lower its temperature and keep cooler longer.
[12]
He had a
special royal license
from King
Louis XIV
to sell a melange of refreshments including spices, iced drinks including "frozen waters", barley water, anise flower, orange flower, cinnamon flower, frangipan, and his improved version of the Italian "ice cream" of fruit-based gelatos like lemon and orange.
[13]
[
incomplete short citation
]
This gave him exclusive rights to these unique sweet and cool products from his kiosk booth at the
Foire Saint-Germain
.
[7]
Prior to Cuto arriving in France there had been other
cafes
(coffee houses) there, although they were called boutiques at the time.
[14]
Some were referred to as lemonade stands, meaning they sold various cold drinks including
lemonade
. There had been a cafe in
Marseille
in 1644 before Pascal and Cuto that soon became defunct, and a
Levantine
had opened a coffee house in Paris in 1643, which had also failed. It seems, however, that Pascal was the first to call his establishment a "cafe" or coffee house where one drinks coffee.
[14]
Establishments serving coffee were in fact common in Paris at this time, although almost all of them were frequented by foreigners and the lower classes. By selling coffee at the fair, Pascal made coffee-drinking acceptable to the general public.
[8]
Cuto soon added coffee to his refreshments' list and the kiosk became a cafe.
[8]
He introduced the Italian "ice cream" gelato at his cafe and is one of the first to sell this new European product directly to the public.
[15]
Prior to then it was reserved for royalty only.
[16]
Cuto's cafe served it in small
porcelain
bowls that resembled egg cups. He is sometimes referred to as "The Father of Italian gelato".
[17]
Cuto relocated his kiosk in 1686 to the rue des Fosses Saint-German.
[18]
In 1689, as luck would have it, the
Comedie-Francaise
opened its doors across the street from his cafe, and it became a very popular cultural and political gathering place. Notable people who have frequented the cafe include
Maximilien Robespierre
,
Victor Hugo
,
Paul Verlaine
,
Pierre Beaumarchais
,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
,
Alain-Rene Lesage
,
Georges Danton
,
Jean-Paul Marat
,
Honore de Balzac
and
Denis Diderot
.
[1]
[
page?needed
]
Even
Benjamin Franklin
,
Thomas Jefferson
,
John Paul Jones
,
Oscar Wilde
,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
,
Napoleon Bonaparte
and
Voltaire
visited Procopio's cafe not only for coffee and intellectual conversations, but for gelato.
[8]
[11]
[16]
In 1702, he changed his name to Francois Procope.
[19]
His cafe in the 17th century turned France into a coffee drinking society.
[11]
It is considered the most famous and successful cafe in Paris. To fans of French history Procopio's business is considered "the holy grail of Parisian cafes".
[20]
Cuto obtained French citizenship in 1685.
[8]
He married a second time in 1696 and fathered five more children with Anne Francoise Garnier. He was married a third time at the age of 66, in 1717, to Julie Parmentier and had another son.
[3]
In 1702, he changed his name to Francois Procope.
[19]
One of his children became a witty doctor, Dr. Michel Procope-Couteau (1684-1753), who wrote "L'art de faire des Garcons" and practiced in Paris.
[21]
Dr. Procope shows up as a fictionalized character in Patrick Suskind's novel, Perfume
[22]
His second son Alexandre took over the Cafe Procope in 1716, but Cuto continued to operate another cafe during the annual Foire Saint-Germain.
[6]