How is cinnamon made? – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.hey it's Jay are there foods that remind you of special memories for me it's french toast I can remember the excitement I felt watching my dad toast the bread and warm up the syrup then he'd get out the ingredient that made it extra special a dash of cinnamon so good someone named Stella has a question about cinnamon let's give Stella a call number now hi Jay hi Stella I have a question for you how's cinnamon made that's a great question you've probably smelled or tasted cinnamon before it's the star ingredient in a cinnamon rolls ooey gooey filling it's what makes that brown swirl in a cinnamon raisin bagel or the brown Flex on top of this oatmeal a touch of cinnamon gives many other Foods their delicious taste too you can call Cinnamon a seasoning or a spice it's something people add to foods to give them a particular flavor It's tricky to describe a flavor with words but I'd say cinnamon is sweet and just a little bit spicy eating it gives me a warm feeling even when the weather is cold you already know that most of the foods we eat come from plants and animals and so do many of the things we use to flavor our foods for instance maybe you've seen these packets that come with pizza crushed red pepper is a spicy seasoning made from Peppers that grow on pepper plants you can see dried up bits of the Pepper's red skin and its flat round seeds or check this out this is oregano another seasoning people sprinkle on pizza if you take a closer look you can tell it's pieces of dried leaves from an oregano plant you might not guess it but cinnamon comes from a plant too a tree to be specific looking at this Dusty powder it's hard to tell what part of a tree it's from so let's go back one step to make cinnamon powder you need to grind up one of these a cinnamon stick but don't let the name fool you it's not like the kind of stick you'd find from a tree branch it's more like a curled up tube and it didn't grow in the shape still you might find some Clues here take a close look what do you notice about the cinnamon stick what part of a tree do you think cinnamon comes from now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss okay ready trees can have lots of different parts like leaves flowers and Roots so which part does cinnamon come from to find out let's take a look at a farm where cinnamon trees are grown like this one see all those parts growing at the bottom this farmer is going to cut some of them off next this person shaves away the bark a tree's bark is kind of like armor it grows on the outside protecting the trees inside Parts on this cut Branch you can see the bark on the outside surrounding the wood that's inside and if you look closely there's a darker ring here that's a layer of inner bark that thin layer is what this person wants to get to so they have to be extra careful not to cut too deep once the inner bark is revealed it's gently sliced and peeled away from the wood the long strips get packed with smaller bits then placed on racks where the bark dries out and curls up now it's ready to be cut into cinnamon sticks you saw before or ground up into cinnamon powder so cinnamon comes from the inner bark of cinnamon trees that's ground Round Up tree bark being baked into treats who knew bark could be so tasty and let me show you another tree with bark we can eat those reddish brown sections on the trunks are where bark has been cut away to make a spice that some people call cassia cassia has a sweet and spicy flavor that's very similar to cinnamon in fact even if you've never heard of Cassie before it's very likely you have tasted it that's because in places like the United States the cassia sold in stores is usually just called cinnamon that's right there's more than one kind of cinnamon the cinnamon we eat is really several varieties that come from different trees each variety has a slightly different flavor but they're all sweet spicy and delicious so in summary cinnamon is made from the bark of specific trees whether it bark harvested from cinnamon trees or cassia cinnamon trees the process takes lots of skillful scraping careful cutting and patient drying to create the sticks and ground up powders that we use to flavor Foods it's important to remember that only a few kinds of trees produce the cinnamon spices we use use so you should not go around tasting trees bark from most trees isn't tasty and it could even make you sick but you can uncover the many other plants that add flavor to our food the next time you're at the grocery store take a look at the spices and Seasonings to see if you can figure out which ones come from plants and which parts of plants were used some have clues in their names like sesame seeds which are seeds or bay leaves which are leaves the groundup spices might be trickier but with a little detective work you may discover you're eating bits of dried up bark flowers berries and Roots at every meal that's all for this week's question thanks Stella for asking it we want to know what you're curious about it's time to cast your vote we picked three questions that we're thinking about answering when this video is done playing click on the one you're most excited to see answered your vote will help us plan for future mini lessons there are Mysteries all around us stay curious and see you next week