This past Friday, I was a guest on the WPR radio station, Here on Earth. We were to talk about cinnamon for the hour. After 51 years in business, it is nice to be considered spice experts. As such we get to share our knowledge in a variety of venues from cooking magazines, to radio (NPR) to television (Alton Brown Good Eats and Real Simple) HOWEVER, I could not imagine how we could spend an hour talking about cinnamon. I spent the entire day furiously scouring our spice manuals, and the internet for fun cinnamon facts and history that would help add up to an hour. I arrived very nervous!
I arrived armed with all of our different cinnamons in whole and bark form, in case we needed sensory triggers. I also had bookmarked four heavy volumes (which I schlepped blocks in the rain) to read some interesting history and political lessons about cinnamon. All this was in actuality a great deal of over prepairing! The hour flew by aided by many, many call ins. We asked the listeners to tell us how they used cinnamon in their households other than the obvious. The majority told us a way in which they added cinnamon to a tomato dish or sauce, or to chili! We could not take all the calls in that hour. What I left there with, was the feeling that everyone in the world loves cinnamon. And everyone has found memories of cinnamon in their breakfast as a child. It seems that the child that starts his day with cinnamon, whether in cinnamon sugar toast, on oatmeal, cream of wheat, French toast or pancakes, will grow up to be a person with happy childhood memories!
That must have been one fun program to be a part of!
I think almost everyone has a fondness for cinnamon in some way or another. In my household, we love it mixed into coffee grounds, in tagines, in curries and a pinch added to a pot of chili, as well as stirred into hot chocolate and warm apple cider.
Posted by: Amanda | November 11, 2008 at 07:45 PM