Cinnamon has been traded for thousands of years. It’s native to Sri Lanka, and was first harvested there around 2,500 BCE. Egyptians liked it enough to bury cinnamon-scented mummies with the dead. From Sri Lanka, the spice trade spread east to India and China, and west around the Mediterranean to Greece and Rome.
The Romans thought that a slave who was fed nothing but cinnamon was an ideal perfume carrier; they called him a “cinnamon boy.” The perfume trade also made use of it, since fragrances are much more volatile than foodstuffs. In Arabia, a single ounce of cinnamon could be traded for a bolt of silk or a slave.
In 1492 Columbus sailed west in search of cinnamon, but he was beaten to it by the Portuguese, who had set up trading posts on the African coast to buy spices directly from Arab traders (and slaves directly from African traders). The Portuguese held onto this advantage until the Dutch defeated them in 1602, at which point the Dutch got a seventy-year monopoly on the spice trade—and then were ousted by the British.
The British ended up with Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) as a colony in 1802; there they had three main products—tea (which
The cinnamon tree is native to innermost Asia, where it has been harvested for centuries. But until fairly recently, it was also one of the world’s great lost crops. The story of how it became a commercial product again is an example of the unintended consequences of politics and globalization.
The spice trade began in India, where cinnamon was harvested from wild trees and exported to the Mediterranean. When Marco Polo visited China in the 13th century, he described cinnamon as one of the marvels of the East:
What is most delicious among their spices is a certain liquor called cinnamon which has a very fine smell… The way they bring it from the country where it grows is this. They have what look like great big mussels made of bamboo; these they fill with the said spices and then seal them up with pitch. These they set out in the sea to act as floats, and so when they are washed ashore… You can see large groves of these trees all laden with this bark, which looks like parchment. They cut long strips of this bark which they dry in the sun… Thus there is an end to our tale about their spices.
The price of this spice was out of reach for all but royalty and merchants who could afford enormous fees to have goods
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from trees of the genus Cinnamomum that is used in both savory and sweet food. It’s flavour resembles a mixture of both cinnamon and cassia. TheFunction(s) of Cinnamon are:
•Cinnamon contains essential oils such as cinnamaldehyde, eugenol, and methyl cinnamate, which give it its distinctive smell and flavor.
•Cinnamon is produced from the bark of several species of tree in the genus Cinnamomum.
•Cinnamon has been known for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians used it medicinally, as did Ancient Greeks and Romans, who used it to reduce inflammation, pain, cough and upset stomach. The Chinese also used it for medicinal purposes.
•The first written record of cinnamon appears in Greco-Roman literature from about 300 B.C. where it was called cassia cinnamon, while another term for it was “Chinese cinnamon.” This name was derived from the fact that the Chinese were one of the largest consumers during this period because they used it as part of their diet to keep away evil spirits and promote longevity.
Cinnamon was so valuable it was sometimes used as currency. This was not because it is so delicious (though it is). It is because it is so hard to get.
Cinnamon comes from a tree that can only be grown in tropical climates; its bark must be gathered by hand, and the tree takes years to mature. It has always been rare and exotic, and for thousands of years the only people who could get it were those who controlled the spice trade: first the Arabs, then the Portuguese, then the Dutch.
Yesterday I (Ryan) took a walk in the mountains with my family. We are lucky to live near a place with good hiking trails. But even though we were in a beautiful part of Japan, none of us paid much attention to our surroundings—not even my seven-year-old daughter Imogen, who loves nature.
When we got home I asked Imogen what she had noticed on our walk. She said she hadn’t seen anything special—just some trees, rocks and birds. “I didn’t notice any birds,” I said. “There weren’t any birds,” she replied; “but there were flowers.” She had seen plenty of flowers, but they hadn’t registered on her consciousness.
Now historically this makes
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus Cinnamomum. The essential oil is used to make aromatic candles and perfumes. Cinnamon has been known in Arabia, Egypt, China and India as a spice for over 4,000 years as a condiment and as a medicine.
Cinnamon was introduced into European kitchens during the spice race of the late Middle Ages. It became extremely popular because it was one of the few spices that could be grown in Northern Europe in the colder climate. The spice was imported into Europe via Arab traders where it held a monopoly position as the only available product for a long time.
It is used today in foods such as buns and sweets, but also in savoury dishes mainly from Northern Europe and East Asia. Its main use is as a condiment on sweet or savoury dishes and especially in mulled wine drinks like glögg.
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum. It is used in both savoury and sweet foods. It comes in three varieties: Ceylon or “true” cinnamon, also known as “cassia”; Indonesian or “false” cinnamon or Korintje, also known as “Cassia vera”; and Saigon or Vietnamese cinnamon (also called Cambodian), which is native to Madagascar and is sometimes distinguished by the name “Ceylon cinnamon”.
Cinnamon is commercially harvested by tapping the bark from several trees. It’s actually harvested by peeling its skin off, not removing the bark. The skin can be processed further into charcoal, which can be used for cooking.
The word cassia comes from Arabic kēš or kāš kŭm, via Persian kīs kīā, meaning “wood of Cassia”. Cassia was the name Rome gave to Ceylon cinnamon, but after Ceylon was better connected to the Western European markets via the Arabs, cassia became more common in Europe.
This type of cinnamon is sold in many forms: sticks (quills), powder and liquid extract. Cassia sticks are used as a decoration in Mexico when
Cinnamon is an aromatic bark, native to Sri Lanka and the Malabar Coast of Southern India, that has been valued for its flavor and scent since antiquity. In the Mediterranean it was so highly valued as a fabric dye that it was often referred to as “black gold”. The ancient Egyptians would use cinnamon for embalming and for mummification. It has been used as a medicine for diarrhea, infection, and wound healing in China, India, Indonesia, Persia, Rome and Egypt.
The word comes from Greek “kinnamon”, an altered form of “quinquagenum” (meaning “five-cations”), because it was found to contain cinnamic aldehyde. The word can also be traced to Tamil kēmpu (கெம்பு), Malayalam kaṃpu (കണ്பു), or Kannada kāmpu (ಕಾಂಪು).
The Sanskrit name for cinnamon is काञ्चन (transliterated kāñcanam) in Devanagari,