Cinnamon, the taste of the American "holiday season"
October through December is known as the "holiday season" in the United States, because the three most important fall and winter holidays - Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas - follow each other, and these three holidays are popular for eating and drinking cinnamon flavored things.
In terms of cooking, cinnamon is less often found in meat dishes and is more often ground into a powder to go with desserts. The taste of cinnamon is a strong, heavy sweetness with a slight kick.
Americans eat holiday apple pie, toast, donuts, bread, etc. like to sprinkle cinnamon powder, there is a special "cinnamon roll", is the original bread roll with frosting and a lot of cinnamon powder, let cinnamon become the flavor of the role, it is clear that the American love of cinnamon.
Not only food, drinks are also the same, in the United States contains cinnamon drinks, especially hot drinks, simply countless, Americans believe that cinnamon to add a warm feeling to the drink, but also represents the arrival of the holiday season.
Often paired with cinnamon is pumpkin, which also symbolizes the fall and winter holiday spirit, because pumpkin is harvested in the fall and its bright orange color and sweet, sticky taste are essential to the holiday season. Because of this, most of the holiday specials launched in coffee shops during the fall and winter seasons, whether it is coffee or tea, have pumpkin and cinnamon flavors, with cinnamon being more important because it is more widely used.
Even on a normal day, coffee shops in the United States are sure to have a bottle of cinnamon powder in the place where they take milk and granulated sugar, which is as essential a seasoning as salt and pepper on a restaurant table.
If you don't pay attention to it, you may mistake it for cocoa powder. In fact, if you look closely, you will find that the color of cocoa powder is more on the dark brown side and the smell is not so heavy, while the color of cinnamon powder is more on the earthy yellow side and the smell is strong.
In addition to the usual hot drinks, when it is cold, people will also use cinnamon to garnish alcoholic beverages, the most famous is cinnamon apple cider, the cider is boiled hot and then add cinnamon, if you want to be more luxurious, you can also put a little clove and orange slices, smell the aroma from afar, there is a warm feeling.
Like any food with a strong flavor, such as durian or cheese, people tend to have two extremes of love and hate for cinnamon: those who love it can't stop loving it and those who hate it are too late to avoid it.
Cinnamon is native to Asia and later spread to Europe. It is even said that the strong and powerful aroma of cinnamon triggered the great seafaring era in the West. At Christmas time, Europeans enjoy drinking red wine with citrus slices and cinnamon, and often use cinnamon in their cooking. For many Americans, it is an essential scent for the holidays and often evokes many fond childhood memories.