CINNAMON SEASON

Winter is the perfect time to explore the versatility, rich history, and nuanced flavors of this fragrant, celebratory spice.

- PAIGE GRANDJEAN

ITS WARM AND WOODSY AROMA is synonymous with the holidays, evoking cinnamon buns and gingerbread. Cinnamon's central place in festive cookery has to do with its history: For millennia, it was considered a rare and precious ingredient, as valuable as gold.

Cinnamon is harvested from the inner bark of cinnamon trees (Cinnamomum verum), which for many centuries were solely grown on the small island of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). To maintain their monopoly on the spice and misdirect would-be competition, Arab merchants kept their island source a secret, telling tales of the cinnamologus, or cinnamon bird, and describing great creatures that built their nests from cinnamon sticks and the perils involved in collecting the spice. The Portuguese conquered Sri Lanka in 1505 and controlled the cinnamon trade for the next 150 years, before the Dutch and then the British seized control. The British cinnamon monopoly ended in the 19th century, when it was discovered that cinnamon trees could be grown in tropical climates outside of Sri Lanka.

Today, a small portion of cinnamon is still grown in Sri Lanka, but the vast majority is produced by Indonesia, China, and Vietnam. While no cinnamon birds are involved, harvesting the spice is a truly laborious task. "Cinnamon has to be harvested by hand, often using very basic tools like knives and scrapers to remove the outer layer of bark and carefully separate the fragrant inner layer from the wood itself," says Ethan Frisch, cofounder of Burlap & Barrel, a spice company. Thick bark harvested from the base of a tree is processed to make ground cinnamon (ideal for adding an immediate punch of flavor to baked goods), while thin, delicate bark from small branches becomes cinnamon sticks, also known as cinnamon quills (better for steeping in hot liquids like mulled wine).