Why I Love This Blog: Cinnamon Miscellaney

Cinnamon Rolls have been a holiday staple in our house for twenty years. In one of her early books Diane Mott Davidson gave a recipe for “Monster Cinnamon Rolls” and for us it is the definitive recipe. The rolls are the size of a lunch plate and require a space at least 30inches long to roll out the dough.It takes three hours of preparation but the response to it is worth getting up at 5AM. In our food oriented household homemade cinnamon rolls are a labor of love.

Cinnamon was one of the earliest prized spices. Egyptians used it in embalming, the Romans used it as incense and to flavor wine. Apparently it was not used in cooking. There is no mention of cinnamon as a flavoring agent in the extant recipes of the time.

The Spice Trade grew dramatically after Marco Polo’s explorations in the 13^th century and was a prime motivator for the period of exploration that lasted for the next five hundred years. Expensive and prized by medieval cooks, cinnamon became the seasoning for many sweet and savory dishes. At the time it was also regarded as a preservative which contributed to its use and popularity. According to the website www.toptropicals.com only one of Magellan’s ships returned from his exploration but that ship carried 26 tons of spices which were enough to pay for the voyage of all five ships that began in his effort to circumnavigate the earth.

From ancient Chinese herbalists to contemporary practitioners of alternative healing, cinnamon is considered as a useful remedy for various malaises, though no one contests the assertion that the “smell is pleasant, stimulates the senses and calms the nerves” (Wikipedia). The Chinese recommended it as a cure for various intestinal distresses as well as flu. There is some preliminary research that validates the historic assertion that cinnamon can add to the effectiveness of insulin, though no clinical trials support this.

The cinnamon tree is native to Sri Lanka. It can grow as high as fifty feet though for agricultural purposes it is usually pruned to less than six feet or into a bush. The spice itself comes from the bark. Originally harvested in the wild it was not until the 16^th century that the Dutch then, in control of the Spice Trade and Ceylon, began to cultivate the trees.

Today most of the “cinnamon” sold is Cassia, a milder version of the original Sri Lankan tree spice. It grows in China, Vietnam.

Is there any doubt that the most popular use of cinnamon today is in cinnamon rolls (aka sticky buns). The predecessor of the cinnamon roll, then called bun, is medieval in origin, probably in Northern Europe and further developed in England.

Elizabeth David in her book ENGLISH BREAD AND YEAST COOKERY describes the Chelsea Bun as “Sugary, spicy, sticky and coiled like a Swiss roll…hefty in proposition.” By 1910, the recipe for cinnamon buns called for the sweet dough to be “sheeted out and sprinkled with sugar, cinnamon and currants, rolled up and sliced.” The oversized cinnamon rolls like the ones I make and Cinnabon markets are a relatively recent development.

As a side note the cream cheese frosting that is half the pleasure of the cinnamon roll was not an element of the treat until after 1872 when cream cheese was invented by a dairy farmer in Chester New York.

This blog is a favorite of mine because it helps me rationalize a research boondoggle. I wanted to know if cinnamon rolls could have existed in the Regency. I was pretty sure, but I wasn’t positive. So I started with Google and, as usual and despite a pressing deadline, was carried away into information on cinnamon, the spice trade, alternative medicinal usage, and, yes, the origins of it as one of the definitive taste treats of the 20^th century.

What subjects have caught your interest and left you with much more information that you needed? And/or what do you consider to be a definitive taste treat of the 20^thcentury?