Rick Clark writes:

>  Rick 'Having Marlin for dinner' Clark
>  P/A for WW&R
>  Cleveland, Ohio    Future home of the new M.L.B. WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!

Wildly off anybody's topic list, Rick's menu selection for tonight is an old
tradition, even among "civilized" people. The next time you eat crescent
rolls ("croissants") for breakfast, it's important to remember that they were
invented (actually introduced into Europe) about 300 years ago -- for
essentially the same purpose.

A croissant is crescent-shaped in order to symbolize the crescent moon found
on many Islamic flags, but in this case, specifically on the Turkish flag.
When the armies of the grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, abandoned their
siege of Vienna in October, 1683, they left behind croissants and coffee.
Vienna was under constant, if somewhat episodic, siege from the Ottoman
Empire from 1529 to 1683. When the Turks were finally driven back, the
"croissant" was taken up with a passion throughout Europe. It was said that
every time someone ate a croissant, they were symbollically eating one of the
Turkish corpses that lay at the gates of Vienna. The failure of the 1683
siege of Vienna marked the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire. Much
of their former territory was subsequently captured by the European Holy
League and converted to Catholicism.

Just thought you wanted to know.

Wirt "I don't make this stuff up" Atmar