SC - OOP: Christmas Dinner

[Robin Carrollmann]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG
> [mailto:owner-sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG]On Behalf Of David Dendy
> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 1999 11:57 PM
> To: SCA Cooks
> Subject: SC - Cinnamon varieties (long)
> 
> 
> Greetings to everyone from Francesco Sirene
> 
> A question was asked about cinnamon . . .   just by chance this is the
> subject I'm researching (horribly academically, no doubt to 
> the horror and
> distain of Lord Ras). So here's a boiled down summary. [Everything you
> wanted to know about cinnamon, and quite a bit more].
> 
> There are a wide variety of types of cinnamon that have been used. In
> present international trade, there are three main varieties 
> available. 1]
> Ceylon cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) 2] Indonesian cinnamon/cassia
> (Cinnamomum burmanii, usually) and 3] Chinese cassia 
> (Cinnamomum cassia). If
> you live in the United States or Canada, what you will find 
> in your stores
> as "Cinnamon" is the Indonesian variety; in most of the world the word
> "cinnamon" today is reserved for Ceylon cinnamon, and the 
> other varieties
> are called "cassia" (and are sold separately). In China the indigenous
> variety is used, but is unlikely to be called cinnamon -- 
> rather it is known
> under the Chinese name of "kwei".
> 
> Ceylon cinnamon is a pale tan colour, and comes in rolled 
> quills made up of
> many paper-thin layers of the bark rolled up in one another. 
> It is quite
> fragile, cinnamon-y but quite sweet. My experience is that many of my
> customers like to eat it straight.
> 
> Indonesian cinnamon/cassia is more of a red-brown colour. It 
> also comes in
> quills, but each quill is a single roll of a bark the 
> thickness of heavy
> cardboard. The cinnamon-y flavour is stronger and almost 
> pungent, and the
> wood is harder.
> 
> Chinese cassia is usually quite dark brown. It normally comes 
> not in rolled
> quills but rather as irregular pieces of thick bark, some of 
> which may be
> partially curved and others flat. It has a very strong 
> cinnamon-y flavour,
> but little sweetness.
> 
> Which of these would you use in your recipe? Aha -- here is where the
> historical argumentation comes in. At this time, I won't go 
> into the issue
> of whether the materials the Ancient Egyptians imported from Punt were
> actually cinnamon, not the issue of where the cinnamon and 
> cassia the Greeks
> and Romans imported via the Red Sea came from. These 
> highly-contentious
> issues are not actually relevant to the subject of the Cooks' 
> List, since
> the earliest reference to cinnamon or cassia being used in 
> European cookery
> do not come until the eighth century (the monks of St. Gall 
> put it in fish
> dishes). Before that time in Europe cinnamon and cassia were 
> used only in
> medicine and perfumery.
> 
> The name met with in European recipes is usually "cannell" or some
> variation, based on description of the sticks (cannell - 
> channel - canal . .
> . all convey the idea of the grooved shape of the bark). Sometimes
> "synamone" or some variant form carries over the idea of a 
> superior variety,
> as that was used by the Romans to distinguish the best.
> 
> In Arabic sources the confusion can catch up with you. 
> "Darchini" is the
> term most often used, for the more desired variety. The name 
> is usually
> taken to mean "wood of China" (thus, for example, in various 
> translations of
> Arabic cookbooks where the translators put "Chinese cinnamon" for this
> word). However, the word was borrowed by the Arabs from 
> Persian or India,
> and probably the "chini" means "sweet" rather than "Chinese", 
> so the actual
> meaning would be "sweet-wood" (so the origin is less 
> definite). The other
> word commonly used, for a less expensive variety, was 
> "kirfah", meaning
> "bark". (A third term, "salikeh", denoted a clove-flavoured bark).
> 
> And what was the actual variety used in period? Almost 
> certainly the usual
> cinnamon available to users in early medieval Europe and the 
> Middle East was
> various sorts coming from north and western India, 
> particularly Cinnamomum
> tamala (tej) and Cinnamomum iners, neither of which are offered in
> international trade today. There is no evidence to suggest Indonesian
> cinnamon was coming west at that time, and the common assumption that
> Chinese cassia was the "darchini" of the Arabs is also highly 
> unlikely,
> since the extensive Chinese records give not the slightest hint of a
> westward export of kwei in this era. The various grades of 
> cannell/synamon
> and kirfah/darchini would be simply an empirical assessment 
> of the pungency,
> sweetness, and palatability (both Cinnamomum tamala and 
> Cinnamomum iners are
> extremely variable in flavour, depending on where and in what 
> conditions
> they grow). [Probably, in practical terms, at least until I line up a
> supplier in India to get the two obscure varieties, your best 
> substitute in
> terms of flavour would be Indonesian cinnamon/cassia.]
> 
> All this changed in the late thirteenth century, when Ceylon 
> first began to
> export its variety of cinnamon (there is quite a story to why Ceylon
> cinnamon only began to be exported at this time, involving 
> the kings of
> Ceylon needing to find a use for the tribute labour of a 
> group of immigrants
> who had been granted land, but I won't go into it here -- ask 
> me if you want
> the details). This new cinnamon from Ceylon was so much more 
> desirable in
> flavour that it quickly took over the darchini/synamon name 
> used for the
> "best" quality. This Ceylon cinnamon quickly became the 
> desired variety, at
> a cost several times that of ordinary cinnamon from India (so 
> much so that
> an English recipe for hypocras says to use synamome for 
> lords, but that
> cannell is good enough for commoners). So for recipes after 
> the thirteenth
> century, Ceylon cinnamon would be the choice of cooks if they 
> could afford
> it. [Crass commercial plug -- if you don't have a handy local 
> source of
> Ceylon cinnamon, you can buy it from us -- see our website URL in the
> signature block].
> 
> Moving out of period, but still interesting, is the 
> explanation for why the
> usual North American spice is cassia, while Europe and most 
> of the world
> uses Ceylon cinnamon. This is a result of the American Revolution. The
> newly-independent Americans quickly started their own trading 
> ventures to
> Asia in search of spices, but they could not get access to Indian and
> Ceylonese supplies because India and Ceylon were in British 
> hands (and the
> British didn't allow foreign traders). Instead the Americans got their
> pepper and other spices in the Indonesian islands, which were 
> under rather
> looser Dutch control -- and the cinnamon available there was 
> the Indonesian
> cinnamon/cassia variety. (The Americans also purchased some 
> Chinese cassia.)
> 
> Any other questions?
> 
> Yours garrulously,
> Francesco Sirene
> David Dendy / ddendy at silk.net
> partner in Francesco Sirene, Spicer / sirene at silk.net
> Visit our Website at http://www.silk.net/sirene/
> 
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