On Food and Cooking

Arabs, medieval European cooks did too.
Nowadays most cinnamon goes into sweet
dishes and candies.
There are several different species of
Cinnamomum that provide aromatic bark, but
cinnamons fall into two general categories.
One is Ceylon or Sri Lankan cinnamon (from
C. verum or zeylanicum), light brown in color,
papery and brittle, coiled in a single spiral,
and with a mild, delicate cinnamon flavor
often described as sweet. The other is the
Southeast Asian or Chinesecinnamon, often
called cassia, which is typically thick and
hard, forming a double spiral, darker in color
and much stronger in flavor, bitter and
somewhat harsh and burning, as in the
American “red-hot” candy. These cinnamons
come mainly from China (C. cassia), Vietnam
(C. loureirii), and Indonesia (C. burmanii).
Cassia types are preferred in most of the
world, Sri Lankan types in Latin America. The
typical hot, spicy cinnamon aroma comes