Grove Koger

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2010 issue of the late lamented McCall Home & Design magazine.

□□□

If I were to ask you whether you have cinnamon in your spice rack, you’d almost certainly say “yes.” But if I were to ask you about another spice called cassia, I’m pretty sure you’d respond with a somewhat puzzled “no.”

Chances are you’d be wrong on both counts. In the United States, cassia—the less expensive of the pair—can legally be sold as cinnamon, and in fact usually is.

The two spices are harvested from closely related species of laurel, and taste quite a bit alike—warm and sweet. Both are native to the same general part of the world and are harvested in pretty much the same way. Their stories involve several of the seven deadly sins as well as the more estimable qualities of curiosity, industry, ingenuity and good taste. From antiquity to the Middle Ages to today’s kitchens, from East to West, from the tropics to cooler climes, their story is virtually the story of civilization itself.

Fantasy & History

Both cinnamon and cassia are mentioned in classical Sanskrit texts and the Bible. Nero burned more than a year’s supply of the two at the funeral of the wife—Poppaea—many suspected that he had murdered.

We ourselves may be easily confused over the differences between the two, but not so the ancients, who appreciated their individual qualities and told equally compelling tales regarding their origins.

Quills (sticks) of cinnamon, said Greek historian Herodotus, were collected from parts unknown by the “cinnamon bird,” which used them to build its nest on the precipitous cliffs of far Arabia. Cunning Arabs laid out great chunks of meat to tantalize the bird, chunks so heavy that they collapsed the nest when the greedy creature carried them back. The Arabs then collected the quills, which they sold to European merchants at prices commensurate with the great difficulties they had undergone in procuring them.

Aristotle explained that the bird (which he helpfully identified as cinomolgus) preferred to build its nest in the spindly crown of a tree, and that clever archers weighted their arrows with lead before firing them into the nest and thus toppling it.

As to cassia, Herodotus maintained that it grew “in a pool not very deep, and round the pool and in it lodge … winged beasts nearly resembling bats, and they squeak horribly and are courageous in fight.” In order to protect themselves, would-be harvesters wrapped themselves in hides and, shielding their eyes (which the creatures apparently found especially tempting), proceeded to “cut the cassia.”

Greek polymath Theophrastus had a slightly different tale to tell about cassia: “They say it grows in valleys where there are snakes with a deadly bite, so they protect their hands and feet when they go down to collect it. When they have brought it out they divide it into three portions and draw lots for them with the sun, and whatever portion the sun wins they leave behind. As soon as they leave it, they say, they see it burst into flame.” The exasperated Theophrastus concluded, “This is of course fantasy.”

Whether or not they believed the stories, the ancient Greeks and Romans procured both spices from the Arabs, who were at pains to keep the prized commodities under their control. We now realize that the Arabs obtained them from East Indian traders who had carried them on a perilous “cinnamon route” across the Indian Ocean to entrepôts on the coast of East Africa.

It was the prospect of obtaining such spices directly that lured European explorers into uncharted waters centuries later. Columbus thought, incorrectly, that he had found cinnamon growing in Cuba in 1492. But it was his Portuguese competitors who tracked down the tree in 1505 in Ceylon. They went on to occupy the island, which subsequently passed into the hands of the Dutch and, in 1796, the British. It became independent in 1948, and we know it today as Sri Lanka.

Botany & Cookery

Cinnamon, or Ceylon cinnamon, is the bark of the Cinnamomum verum (or Cinnamomum zeylanicum) tree, which is now also grown in the Indian Ocean nations of Seychelles and Malagasy (Madagascar). 

If left to its own devices, the tree reaches 60 feet, but under cultivation it’s encouraged to grow as a bushy cluster of shoots. At six feet or so the shoots are cut down and their outer bark scraped off. The inner bark is then loosened and removed in two-yard-long sections that are rolled into “quills” for drying.

The various species of cassia are less highly regarded than genuine cinnamon, and you may see them referred to as “false” or “bastard” cinnamon. More technically they’re known as Cinnamomum cassia (Chinese cassia, China cassia), Cinnamomum burmannii (Indonesian cassia, Batavia cassia), and Cinnamomum loureirii (Saigon cassia).

Most cassia is ground and sold in this country as its far pricier cousin. One spice company explains that “meticulous cooks opt for cassia’s stronger flavor and aroma,” adding that “in the U.S., people traditionally prefer cassia.” To paraphrase Chaucer, The wise man makes a virtue of necessity!

How to tell cinnamon and cassia apart visually? When ground, the two are very similar in appearance. Cinnamon is tan but cassia is reddish-brown—a difference that my eyes don’t readily perceive. A better test seems to lie in the delicacy of the quills. Those of cassia are noticeably stiff, those of genuine cinnamon almost as fragile as paper. 

Verbal sleight of hand aside, cassia is a perfectly good spice, and its more aggressive taste makes it an ideal ingredient for savory North African and Middle Eastern dishes. As we all know, it’s fine in pies and pastries too, although in smaller amounts. Now that I realize that I’m using cassia, I think I understand why I’ve found myself cutting back on it every time I make pumpkin pie. I’m happy enough with the result, but now I’ll seek out genuine cinnamon for baking.

□□□

The image at the top of the post is taken from the booklet Spices: A Text-Book for Teachers (McCormick & Company, 1915), and is in the public domain in the United States. The second image is a photograph by Simon A. Eugster of cinnamon quills, powder, and dried flowers, while the third is a photograph of cassia bark. Both photographs are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The engraving, which depicts cinnamon production in Sri Lanka before modern methods of cultivation were introduced, dates from about 1672 and is in the public domain in the United States. It is reproduced from the Atlas of Mutual Heritage and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the Dutch National Library, by way of Wikimedia Commons.