Garden column: Spice up your Thanksgiving
Most all of you likely had a dish on your Thanksgiving table that contained cinnamon. The warm spice is very popular once chilly days begin. We enjoy it in everything from red hots to apple pie and in meat and vegetable dishes. Local gardeners can’t grow it but in some exotic areas, the gardeners do and that is the source of interesting history.
Cinnamon is the bark of an evergreen tree from the laurel family. It has been used in Egypt since 2000 BCE. The cinnamon producing tree is Cinnamomum verum. A similar flavored spice also commonly called cinnamon in our markets is from Cinnamomum aromaticum which is actually cassia but is milder in flavor and cheaper in price. As the middle East became more populous and sophisticated, traders moved overland to introduce cinnamon to Europe where it became wildly popular. Cinnamon was used as a flavoring and also medicinally and in embalming. It came to be valued more highly than gold and proved to be the impetus for exploratory voyages seeking a shortcut to obtain the spice by creating shipping routes. (We all remember that spice trade was the motivation for Columbus stumbling upon America.) Today we enjoy two types of cinnamon. The true cinnamon is predominately grown in the old country Ceylon now Sri Lanka. The cassia sold as cinnamon is grown in China.
The trees only grow in tropical conditions and are propagated by root cuttings or seeds. The trees can grow to be nearly 60 feet tall but in the cinnamon plantations (mostly in Sri Lanka) they are generally kept smaller so the bark can be harvested. Two-year-old trees are pruned drastically and the bark is dried for sale as cinnamon. The following year the tree will produce many shoots. The dried bark is sold as cinnamon sticks or ground powder.
As cinnamon increased in desirability the search for a source continued and in 1518 Portuguese sailors discovered it growing in Sri Lanka. Trade wars ensued and ownership of the plantations became quite competitive and Ceylon cinnamon was and is expensive. Since Ceylon cinnamon was difficult to obtain, the popularity of cassia cinnamon increased.
Today most of what we use is probably cassia cinnamon. Penzey’s spices sells a medium bottle of ground Chinese cassia cinnamon for $4.70 compared to Ceylon cinnamon same size for $6.30.
The growers wanting to maintain as much of a monopoly on the trade as possible invented tales about the spice that frightened people away from trying to obtain it. Herodotus, a Greek author, wrote that the trees were guarded by screeching birds that would gouge the eyes out of anyone who attempted to steal the valuable bark.
Regardless of the tales, flavor lovers were not dissuaded from pursuing the use of cinnamon. One of the blessings we can be thankful for this Thanksgiving is ready availability of cinnamon in our markets. Fill your punch bowl and add a few sticks of cinnamon and enjoy a thankful blessing.
Pat Smith is a Licking County Master Gardener volunteer