A Long Tale on Cinnamon Ending With Barquillos
This is the cappuccino my friend ordered in NO Joke Cofee, a coffeeshop in Tianjin, China. Please note the cigar-like cinnamon stick on the side... We don’t use cinnamon at home for daily cooking, and so I believed that cinnamon is only for glazing breads. This belief remained had I not bought Chinese Five Spice in Thailand. And so, I learned that cinnamon is one of the five ingredients and the five-spice can throw one’s braised beef in a whole new light considering we only use the usual salt and pepper. I rub five-spice in my chicken, fish and favorite vegetables before grilling or frying. I fell in love with five-spice and its fragrant component, cinnamon. Long after that and long before I headed to China for a vacation, I read an interesting note on cinnamon in the book of compiled columns of Filipino historian Ambeth Ocampo entitled, Chulalongkorn’s Elephants (The Philippines in Asian History, Looking Back 4). In one column entitled Walang Cuenta (No Value), Miguel Lopez de Le...