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Cassia (Cinnamomum aromaticum Nees) is a spice made from the bark an evergreen tree native to southern China, a close relative to the Cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) and Camphor (Cinnamomum camphora) trees.
The cassia tree has a greyish bark, often abundantly covered by lichens, and hard elongated leaves that have a decidedly reddish cast when young. The bark of whole trees is harvested for cassia, and the flavour is less delicate than that of the bark of the small shoots used for cinnamon. Sometimes cassia is called bastard cinnamon, as it is not as expensive as true cinnamon.
Up to the 1960s Vietnam was the world's most important producer of cassia. Because of the Vietnam war, production in highland Sumatra, IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia the world's largest archipelago, is located between the Southeast Asian peninsula and Australia, between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Indonesia borders Malaysia on the island of Borneo ( Kalimantan in Bahasa Indonesia), Papua N was increased, and this remains one of the main cassia exporters today.
Cassia is used against vermin and as a flavouring agent, both for sweetmeats and for meat. Cassia is sometimes added to true cinnamon but is a much thicker, coarser product and does not coilA coil is a series of loops. A coil made of rigid materials can be fashioned in a spiral or helical shape; see spiral staircase. Flexible materials like wire, rope, hose, or cable can also be coiled into empty loops, or wound around a central drum or spin into quills as effectively.
In classical times, four types of cinnamon were distinguished (and often confused):
In ExodusThis article is about the second book in the Torah. For other uses of the name, see Exodus (disambiguation The name Exodus refers to the book which comes second both in the Torah (the five books of Moses) and also in the Tanakh (the Old Testament of the B 30, 23, MosesSee also Exodus Moses or Moshe "Drawn", Standard Hebrew Moše Tiberian Hebrew Mošeh , son of Amram and his wife, Jochebed, a Levite. Legendary Hebrew liberator, leader, lawgiver, prophet, and historian. If he is a historical figure, he may have is ordered to use both sweet cinnamon (Kinnamon) and cassia (qesia) together with myrrhMyrrh is a red-brown resinous material, the dried sap of the Commiphora myrrha tree, indigenous to Somalia. A number of other Commiphora or Balsamodendron saps are also known as myrrh, including that from Commiphora erythraea (sometimes called East Indian, sweet calamusCalamus may mean: Sweet flag Acorus calamus an herb Calamus (palm genus a genus of rattan palms Calamus (fish genus a genus of porgies (Sparidae) Calamus, Iowa Calamus, Wisconsin. and olive oilFor Popeye's girlfriend, see Olive Oyl''. Olive oil is an oil derived from the fruit of the olive tree, which originated in the Mediterranean area. It is produced by pressing olives and has a very high content of monounsaturated fat. Olive oil was traditi to produce a holy oil to anoint the ark. Psalm 45, 7-8, mentions the garments of the righteous that smell of myrrh, aloe and cassia.
The first Greek reference to kasia is found in a poem by Sappho in the 7th century B.C.
According to Herodot, both cinnamon and cassia grow in Arabia, together with incense, myrrh and ladanum , and are guarded by winged serpents. The phoenix builds its nest from cinnamon and cassia. But Herodot mentions other writers that see the home of Dionysos, e.g. India, as the source of cassia. While Theophrastus gives a rather good account of the plants, but a curious method for harvesting (worms eat away the wood and leave the bark behind), Dioscorides seems to confuse the plant with some kind of water-lily.
Pliny (nat. 12, 86-87) gives a fascinating account of the early spice trade across the Red Sea in "rafts without sails or oars", obviously using the trade-winds, that costs Rome 100 Millions sesterces each year.According to Pliny, a pound (the Roman pound, 327g) of cassia, cinnamon or serichatum cost up to 300 denars, the wage of ten month's labour. Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices from 301 AD gives a price of 125 denars for a pound of cassia, while an agricultural labourer earned 25 denars per day.
The Greeks used kásia or malabathron to flavor wine, together with absinth (arthemisia absinthia). Pliny mentions cassia as a flavouring agent for wine as well (Plin. nat. 14, 107f.). Malabathrum leaves (folia) were used in cooking and for distilling an oil used in a caraway-sauce for oysters by the roman gourmet Gaius Gavius Apicius (de re coquinaria I, 29, 30; IX, 7). Malabathrum is among the spices that, according to Apicius, any good kitchen should contain.
Egyptian recipes for kyphi, an aromatic used for burning, include cinnamon and cassia from Hellenistic times onwards. The gifts of Hellenistic rulers to temples sometimes included cassia and cinnamon as well as incense, myrrh and Indian incense (kostos), so we can conclude that the Greeks used it in this way too.
The famous Commagenum, an unguent produced in Commagene in present-day eastern Turkey was made from goose-fat and aromatised with cinnamon oil and spikenard (Nardostrachys jatamansi). Malobrathum from Egypt (Dioscorides I, 63) was based on cattle-fat and contained cinnamon as well; one pound cost 300 denars. The Roman poet Martial (VI, 55) makes fun of Romans who drip unguents, smell of cassia and cinnamon taken from a bird's nest and look down on him who does not smell at all.
Cinnamon, as a warm and dry substance was believed by the ancient doctors to cure, among others, snakebites, freckles, the common cold and kidney troubles.
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