Nechezol Explained

Nechezol was a Romanian coffee substitute,^[1] imposed on the market in the last years of communism in Romania.

Coffee had virtually disappeared from Romanian stores in the 1980s (but was still available in Comturist hard-currency luxury shops and on the black market^[2]), with the drastic limitation of imports intended to reduce Romania's external debt. Nechezol contained only one-fifth coffee, the balance typically consisting of barley, oats, chickpeas and chestnuts. Its pejorative nickname is derived from the verb a necheza (to neigh), alluding to the oats (usually fed to horses), with the chemical suffix -ol giving a pseudoscientific touch alluding to Elena Ceaușescu, "world-renowned scientist" and wife of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Nechezol contained no caffeine.^[3]

See also

• East German coffee crisis

See also

• Cereal coffee
• Postum

Notes and References

1. Précarité alimentaire, austérité: Manger pendant la dernière décennie communiste en Roumanie . Food insecurity and austerity: Eating in the last decade of Communism in Romania . Anthropology of Food . 14 October 2008 . 6 . 10.4000/aof.4513 . 2012-02-24. fr . Perianu . Catherina . free .
2. Web site: Memorabilia: O ceasca de nechezol cu lapte de soia, va rog . https://web.archive.org/web/20120526182313/http://metropotam.ro/La-zi/Memorabilia-o-ceasca-de-nechezol-cu-lapte-de-soia-va-rog-art5344453460/ . 26 May 2012 . dead . ro . Memorabilia: a Cup of Nechezol with Soy Milk, Please . la zi pe Metropotam . 24 March 2008 .
3. Web site: O lume disparută / A Vanished World . Ion Manolescu, Ioan Stanomir, Paul Cernat, Angelo Mitchievici . https://web.archive.org/web/20140331235357/http://www.romanianwriters.ro/book.php?id=14 . 31 March 2014 . dead . Coffee had been replaced by a product ironically dubbed nechezol. The term seems to come from the verb a necheza ('to whinny'), but I don’t know its etymology for certain. It was made from chickpeas combined with who knows what and drunk as a substitute for coffee. Advantage : no caffeine. Disadvantage : it wasn’t coffee. With a lot of imagination, you might think you were drinking bad coffee. The worst. .