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