by: Sherri L Dodd

Origin: Imported from China to Egypt as early as 2000 B.C., Cinnamon was given as a prestigious offering to Monarchs. It is even featured with positive and symbolic meaning in the NY Times All-time Best Seller, The Bible, in the books of Exodus and Proverbs.

Plant: A small evergreen tree with oblong leaves and little green flowers with an unpleasant smell. Inside the tree’s small purple berry is a single seed. Cinnamon is harvested by growing the tree for two years and then cutting it back in order to grow shoots from the tree’s roots over the duration of the next year. The shoots are then stripped of their bark and dried. After naturally drying, the outer portion is removed and only a minimally thin inner bark is used. Finally, the thin bark is layered with other pieces and once more left to dry into the recognizable curled strips. This final result, known as the quill is then cut into spicejar-sized pieces. The oil, also highly utilized is prepared by pounding the bark, soaking it in sea water and then distilling it.

Quality: The best cinnamon comes naturally out of Sri Lanka, as well as commercially grown farms in Brazil, Madagascar, Sumatra, West Indies, Vietnam, and more. It possesses a very thin smooth bark with a light-yellowish brown color. Its fragrant odor is particularly sweet, warm and it gives a very pleasing taste, the result of the concentration of its cinnamon oil.

Benefits: U. S. Department of Agriculture found in studies that using a half teaspoon of cinnamon daily lowered many dangerous blood related levels, including blood sugar in diabetics (especially Type-2), cholesterol, triglyceride and Low Density Lipo-proteins (LDL’s). The same result is achieved by adding cinnamon in tea. To be furthered researched is a notion that ingesting cinnamon can lower blood pressure and whether or not excessive amounts of the fat-soluable components of cinnamon are safe from toxicity.

The Oil of cinnamon also has its benefits - boosting brain function. Research by the Association for Chemoreception Sciences found that products with cinnamon oil enhanced resesarch participant’s cognitive processing, especially, in computer-based tasks such as attentional processes, virtual recognition, working memory, and visual-motor speed.

Blurb: When mentioning cinnamon, desserts such as the cinnamon roll come to mind first. However, in all purpose cinnamon does more than just make your food taste good. It also qualifies as an “anti-microbial” food, stopping the growth of bacteria as well as fungi such as yeast (Candida). In laboratory tests, growth of yeast with resistance to anti-fungal medication was often stopped by cinnamon extracts. With this data, cinnamon even proves itself worthy as a natural food preservative…but really, to us it just tastes and smells great!

by: Kristin Johnson

Close your eyes and remember December, the smell of cinnamon in your mother’s or grandmother’s kitchen and the warm scent of dough baking in the oven. Imagine opening the oven door and, with assistance, taking out the heated cookie sheet. Devour the cookies, small works of art, with your eyes: Fudge Brownies, Gingerbread, Nut Rolls, Painted Cookies, Sugar Cookies… With each bite, taste your childhood and family history. You can trace your blood and traditions not by DNA, genealogies and family heirlooms, but by recipes given from one generation to the next, like oral histories handed down in clans before recorded fact caught on.

Scholars once sniffed at “women’s lore,” but the notations of “1 dash nutmeg” and “1 cup chopped nuts,” when handwritten on a yellowing page, are as important to memorize as the dates of the American Revolution. They are a tangible reminder of love, care and craft in any society, but particularly in America, where encouragement to eat bags of artificially sweetened store-bought Christmas sweets leave people sugar-craving, guilty, physically and emotionally empty Christmas cookies are the opposite of this trend. They represent home, family, comfort, joy, and tradition.

It’s a miraculous event when generations gather around the stove to spend a day together, getting their hands dirty and sharing of themselves. It is miraculous because those memories are irreplaceable. It’s miraculous because children get curious and ask, for example, “Why are the Christmas cookies German? What was Christmas like when you were my age? Did Santa Claus visit you?”

Mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather can share with children the family history and everyday moments in the past, such as, “Your grandmother made a mistake and measured one cup of walnuts when the recipe called for half a cup. But the cookies tasted better, so to this day we always use 1 cup of walnuts in the recipe.” By reliving these rare glimpses of a life you may have forgotten, you honor and celebrate yourself as well as your family. Christmas cookies themselves transmit and record history and tradition.

In addition, Christmas cookies are a thread to Christmas past, not only our past, but long past. The word cookie came about thanks to Dutch settlers in North America during the 1700s to 1900s. Koek is Dutch for cake, so koekje, later cookie in English, means “little cake.” Christmas cookies like German Springerle continue the custom of serving Christmas baked goods started by the Romans, Teutonic/Germanic tribes, and other pre-Christian civilizations. Christian religions sanctified these symbols of worship of the harvest gods by adding a “J” on the top to mark the breads as offerings to Jesus Christ. Ancient European peoples ate gingerbread at Winter Solstice feasts. When you bake gingerbread and Springerle, you’re participating in a tradition that endures.

In that spirit, here is a recipe for successful cookie-making:

Start with 1 family, 1 kitchen, and a box of recipes. Add an uninterrupted period of time. Subtract phone calls, televisions, or any other distractions. For best results, add the Prayer Before Baking from CHRISTMAS COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING:

“God bless this mixture with the sweetest and tastiest ingredients: joy, faith, family, friendship, love, and health. Let the scent of this holiday offering rise to Heaven and make the angels sing, for the happiness of mankind is their feast. Let us taste our blessings with each bite as we share the company of our loved ones. Amen.”

Sprinkle with laughter. Add amusing family stories with a lavish hand. Fold in 1 cup patience and understanding, blended with 1 gallon youthful enthusiasm and a pinch of baking know-how. Eat your mistakes with joy. Bake lovingly and well. Enjoy warm, delicious, Christmas miracle cookie-baking memories for years to come!

by: Laura Bankston