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Comment by Blackthorn | Hacker News Reader

I think the cinnamon one is a bit unfair. Cassia is what basically everyone in the USA knows and expects as cinnamon.

Alternatively you could see this as a damning consequence of letting this kind of “innocent” food fraud go unchecked. It’s gotten so bad with cinnamon that effectively zero percent of cinnamon in America is cinnamon, but is a cheaper counterfeit.

Part of me is inclined to agree with you. There’s nothing “wrong” with cassia. But it bothers me that we’ve established a precedent that we can just label one food as another because it’s cheaper and easier to access.

There's two types of cinnamon commonly used as a spice:

Cassia cinnamon

Ceylon cinnamon

The latter is what this article is calling "real" but they are both real. Ceylon originates in India and is used in Indian cooking. Cassia originates in SEA/China Asia and is used in recipes there.

They are simply two different varieties of the same tree and they are both cinnamon. In fact there are many more varieties than just that two, same as with apples, tea, coffee or any other plant and it makes no sense to designate only one variety of cinnamon as "real". They have different flavors and neither is better.

In fact, the genus Cinnamomum which contains cassia and ceylon (C. cassia and C. verum, respectively) is pretty large and diverse. Sometimes what people refer to as cassia can actually be one of several species, e.g. C. burmannii, which is also often referred to as korintje. There are others that can be ambiguously named. E.g. the aromatic compound camphor is harvested from camphorwood (Cinnamomum camphora), which is not to be confused with the tree known as camphorwood in Australia, Cinnamomum oliveri.

I have no real point here other than cinnamon (i.e. the genus Cinnamomum) is fascinating and confusing in equal measures and people should definitely read up on it.

> Ceylon originates in India and is used in Indian cooking.

As an Indian, I can assure you that the cinnamon we use in our cooking is indeed Cassia.

Ceylon is in Sri Lanka, a bit south of us.

Ah, thanks for the info, I didn't know that - I have only travelled in the south of India and found that mostly Ceylon was used.

Cassia does originally come from China though, although I guess it has spread a long way.

it's not, however, "unfair" to teach people that there are actually different varieties of a product they buy, and that one is more expensive and maybe presumed to be better. I agree with you that they did not make all these distictions clearly, but it was interesting to learn and I plan to taste test them when I can.

They are literally calling other varieties "fake" and telling you to avoid them at all costs. Not really what I would call teaching.

There is almost zero correlation in Italy between the type of the rice on the package and the type of the rice contained, only a couple types have regulations, and even for these they're not always respected [1]

I hate it because we're often sold an inferior product and likewise it's probably too late to do anything about it.

1. http://bressanini-lescienze.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.i...

Yeah, I would argue that calling it counterfeit is completely wrong. Cassia and Ceylon cinnamon are both in the genus cinnamomum, so it's completely appropriate to call both cinnamon. Really, they're two very different spices whose flavors are only somewhat similar and have different culinary uses, but Ceylon cinnamon is less common in the US, so when we say cinnamon we pretty much always mean it to be cassia cinnamon- no deception or counterfeiting involved here.

Kind of like wasabi. The people who expect real wasabi know what to look for.

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