Cinnamon is
a spice obtained
from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus Cinnamomum. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, breakfast cereals, snack foods, teas, and traditional foods. The aroma and flavour of cinnamon derive from its essential oil and principal component, cinnamaldehyde, as well as numerous other constituents including eugenol.
Cinnamon is the name for several species of trees and the
commercial spice products that some of them produce. All are members of the
genus Cinnamomum in the family Lauraceae. Only a few Cinnamomum species are grown
commercially for spice. Cinnamomum verum (AKA C. zeylanicum), known as "Ceylon
cinnamon" after its origins in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), is considered to be "true
cinnamon",[1] but most cinnamon in international commerce is derived
from four other species, usually and more correctly referred to as
"cassia": C. burmannii (Indonesian cinnamon or Padang
cassia), C. cassia (Chinese cinnamon or Chinese
cassia), C. loureiroi (Saigon cinnamon or Vietnamese cassia),
and the less common C. citriodorum (Malabar cinnamon).[1][2][3] In 2018, Indonesia and China produced 70% of the world's supply of
cinnamon, Indonesia producing nearly 40% and China 30%.[4]
Etymology
The English word "cinnamon", attested in English since
the 15th century, deriving from the Ancient
Greek κιννάμωμον (kinnámōmon, later
κίνναμον : kínnamon), via Latin and medieval
French intermediate forms. The Greek was borrowed from a Phoenician word, which was similar to the
related Hebrew word קנמון (qinnāmōn).[5][6]
The name "cassia", first recorded in late Old
English from Latin, ultimately derives from the Hebrew word קציעה qetsīʿāh,
a form of the verb קצע qātsaʿ,
"to strip off bark".[7][8]
Early Modern English also used the names canel and canella,
similar to the current names of cinnamon in several other European languages,
which are derived from the Latin word cannella, a diminutive of canna,
"tube", from the way the bark curls up as it dries.[9]
History
Cinnamon has been known from remote antiquity.[10] It
was imported to Egypt as early as 2000 BC, but those who reported that it had
come from China had confused it with Cinnamomum cassia, a related
species.[3] Cinnamon
was so highly prized among ancient nations that it was regarded as a gift fit
for monarchs[10] and
even for a deity; a fine inscription records the gift of cinnamon and cassia to
the temple of Apollo at Miletus.[11] Its
source was kept a trade secret in the Mediterranean world for centuries by
those in the spice trade, in order to protect their monopoly as
suppliers.[12]
Cinnamomum verum, which translates from Latin as
"true cinnamon", is native to India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar.[13] Cinnamomum
cassia (cassia) is native to China. Related species, all
harvested and sold in the modern era as cinnamon, are native to Vietnam ("Saigon
cinnamon"), Indonesia and other southeast Asian countries with warm
climates.
In Ancient Egypt, cinnamon was used to embalm mummies.[14] From
the Ptolemaic Kingdom onward, Ancient Egyptian
recipes for kyphi, an aromatic used for burning, included cinnamon and cassia.
The gifts of Hellenistic rulers to temples sometimes included cassia and
cinnamon.
The first Greek reference to κασία : kasía is
found in a poem by Sappho in the 7th century BC. According to Herodotus, both
cinnamon and cassia grew in Arabia, together with incense, myrrh and labdanum, and were
guarded by winged serpents.[15] Herodotus,
Aristotle and other authors named Arabia as the source of cinnamon; they
recounted that giant "cinnamon
birds" collected the cinnamon sticks from an unknown land where
the cinnamon trees grew and used them to construct their nests.[15]: 111
Pliny the Elder wrote that cinnamon was
brought around the Arabian
peninsula on "rafts without rudders or sails or oars",
taking advantage of the winter trade
winds.[16] He
also mentioned cassia as a flavouring agent for wine,[17] and
that the tales of cinnamon being collected from the nests of cinnamon birds was
a traders' fiction made up to charge more. However, the story remained current
in Byzantium as late as 1310.[18]
According to Pliny the Elder, a Roman
pound (327 grams [11.5 oz]) of cassia, cinnamon (serichatum), cost up to 1,500 denarii, the wage of fifty months' labour.[19] Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices[20] from
301 AD gives a price of 125 denarii for
a pound of cassia, while an agricultural labourer earned 25 denarii per day. Cinnamon was too
expensive to be commonly used on funeral pyres in Rome, but the Emperor Nero is
said to have burned a year's worth of the city's supply at the funeral for his
wife Poppaea Sabina in AD 65.
Middle Ages
Through the Middle
Ages, the source of cinnamon remained a mystery to the Western
world. From reading Latin writers who quoted Herodotus, Europeans had learned
that cinnamon came up the Red Sea to
the trading ports of Egypt, but where it came from was less than clear. When
the Sieur de Joinville accompanied his king, Louis IX of France to Egypt on the Seventh
Crusade in 1248, he reported—and believed—what he had been told:
that cinnamon was fished up in nets at the source of the Nile out at the edge of the
world (i.e., Ethiopia). Marco Polo avoided
precision on the topic.[22]
The first mention that the spice grew in Sri Lanka was in Zakariya al-Qazwini's Athar al-bilad
wa-akhbar al-'ibad ("Monument of Places and History of God's
Bondsmen") about 1270.[23] This
was followed shortly thereafter by John of Montecorvino in a letter of about 1292.[24]
Indonesian rafts transported cinnamon directly from the Moluccas to
East Africa (see also Rhapta), where local traders then carried it north to Alexandria in
Egypt.[25][26][27] Venetian traders
from Italy held a monopoly on the spice trade in Europe,
distributing cinnamon from Alexandria. The disruption of this trade by the rise
of other Mediterranean powers, such as the Mamluk sultans and the Ottoman
Empire, was one of many factors that led Europeans to search more
widely for other routes to Asia.[28]
Early Modern Period
During the 1500s, Ferdinand Magellan was searching for spices on
behalf of Spain, and in the Philippines found Cinnamomum mindanaense, which was closely related
to C. zeylanicum, the cinnamon found in Sri Lanka. This cinnamon
eventually competed with Sri Lankan cinnamon, which was controlled by the
Portuguese.[29]
In 1638, Dutch traders established a trading post in Sri Lanka,
took control of the manufactories by
1640, and expelled the remaining Portuguese by 1658. "The shores of the
island are full of it," a Dutch captain reported, "and it is the best
in all the Orient. When one is downwind of the island, one can still smell
cinnamon eight leagues out to sea."[30] The Dutch East India Company continued to overhaul the
methods of harvesting in the wild and eventually began to cultivate its own
trees.
In 1767, Lord Brown of the British East India Company established Anjarakkandy
Cinnamon Estate near Anjarakkandy in
the Kannur district
of Kerala, India.
It later became Asia's largest cinnamon estate. The British took control of
Ceylon from the Dutch in 1796.
Species
A number of species are often sold as cinnamon:[34]
·
Cinnamomum cassia (cassia or Chinese cinnamon, the most common commercial
type in the USA)
·
C. burmannii (Korintje, Padang cassia, or Indonesian
cinnamon)
·
C.
loureiroi (Saigon cinnamon, Vietnamese cassia, or Vietnamese cinnamon)
·
C. verum (Sri Lanka cinnamon, Ceylon cinnamon or Cinnamomum
zeylanicum)
·
C. citriodorum (Malabar cinnamon)
Cassia induces a strong, spicy flavour and is often used in
baking, especially associated with cinnamon rolls, as it handles baking conditions well. Among cassia, Chinese
cinnamon is generally medium to light reddish-brown in colour, hard and woody
in texture, and thicker (2–3 mm (0.079–0.118 in) thick), as all of
the layers of bark are used. Ceylon cinnamon, using only the thin inner bark,
has a lighter brown colour and a finer, less dense, and more crumbly texture.
It is subtle and more aromatic in flavour than cassia and it loses much of its
flavour during cooking.
The barks of the species are easily distinguished when whole,
both in macroscopic and microscopic characteristics. Ceylon cinnamon sticks
(quills) have many thin layers and can easily be made into powder using a
coffee or spice grinder, whereas cassia sticks are much harder. Indonesian
cinnamon is often sold in neat quills made up of one thick layer, capable of
damaging a spice or coffee grinder. Saigon cinnamon (C. loureiroi) and
Chinese cinnamon (C. cassia) are always sold as broken pieces of thick
bark, as the bark is not supple enough to be rolled into quills.
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