The Desperate Hunt For Cinnamon

Aside from the turkey over at the dinner table, Thanksgiving is also a season for one of the most loved spices in the world: cinnamon. It is a spice that we usually add to our coffee and our bread rolls. Today, cinnamon is widely available across the world. But centuries ago, people in Europe desperately tried to get their hands on this aromatic condiment, with some people, like Gonzalo Pizzaro, being so desperate that they resorted to horrific methods.

More than 2,500 years ago,... cinnamon—native to east and southeast Asia—was available in the Mediterranean. But it was very expensive. Its origin was mysterious to people there. The ancient Greek author Herodotus told his readers that cinnamon was brought to Arabia by large birds who used it to build nests high in the mountains. To harvest it, he explained, people tricked the birds into flying large joints of oxen into their nests, which broke under the weight of the meat.

This may have been an extremely silly story, but, for the next 2,000 years, no one in Europe knew where cinnamon actually came from. Given its high value as a medicine, a component of incense used in religious practices, and a flavoring, Europeans looked for it everywhere.

Learn more about this story over at JSTOR Daily.

(Image Credit: ulleo/ Pixabay)