Cider
White wine is much used in French cookery, but especially in the cooking of fish. Cider is an excellent substitute for it in English kitchens; and indeed the white wine in which a French cook boils his fish is often so thin and acid that it may well cost less than a bottle of good cider and also be less wholesome. Pray remember that good cider is better than vile wine.
CINNAMON is about the oldest known spice in the world, and comes from the bark of a species of laurel. In America and on the continent of Europe it is often confounded with cassia, which goes by the name of Chinese cinnamon. The true cinnamon is the cinnamon of Ceylon; but it also comes from Madras, Bombay, and Java, though of inferior quality. The Cassia or Cassia lignea, which comes chiefly from China, has the appearance and the qualities of cinnamon; but it is coarser in flavour and not so sweet. It is in great request, however, in Turkey, in Russia, and in Germany, where the true cinnamon is not deemed strong enough. Pereira speaks of a merchant who sent cinnamon worth 3s. 6d. a pound to Constantinople, and found it unsaleable, while his cassia at 6d. a pound was in great request. The chief consumers of cinnamon are the chocolate makers of Spain, Italy, and France, and they are not to be put off with cassia when they can get the true bark. When the Dutch Cinnamon held possession of Ceylon, they were known at times to burn the cinnamon, in order to limit the supply and to keep up the price. But the supply is limited in any case, for though the bark grows again upon the cinnamon trees, it takes three years to do so; and a crop which comes but once in three years cannot be considered abundant. Moreover the tree is otherwise exhausted, for the Cingalese express from the root a juice that hardens into camphor. the medical virtues of which are nearly as famous as those of the cinnamon bark.
There are points of interest about cinnamon in connection with old cookery; and three of these may be noted. The first is that when we hear of sweet powder, or poudre douce, in the dainty dishes of our ancestors, this means a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Some recent writers have seen this powder mentioned as pulvis dulcis, have misread it pulvis ducis, and have rendered it Poudre de Duc, and Duke's powder.
The second. There was a Cameline sauce used in the middle ages the name of which is a terrible puzzle to the French. According to French accounts, the sauce was composed of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, paradise grains (that is, cardamums), bread, and vinegar. According to old English receipts, dating from the time of Chaucer, it was made of currants, kernels of nuts, crusts of bread, ginger, cloves, flour of cinnamon, and salt brayed well and mixed with vinegar. Littré says that the sauce must have been called Cameline because of some supposed resemblance to camelot or camlet-a tunic made originally of camel's hair! It is true that we have a modern sauce called Velvetdown from its smoothness; but to derive cameline from camelot is too big a camel to swallow. The origin of the term is not far to seek. It was usual in those days to name a dish from one of its many ingredients, and we are surprised to find that the ingredient selected for the name is often by no means the most prominent. There was a mustard soup, Cinnamon in which the mustard was a very small part. There was a galantine in which the galingale was as modest as the pistachio is now. And so here the sauce is named from the cinnamon, which the French named canelle. It will be asked, How came then to be transformed into m? It is especially noted in the English receipt that the canellespelt canel is to be in flour, and the old French name for this must have been canelmine. Large salt, what we call rock salt, was salgrenu or saugrenu (hence our word corned beef); small, fine salt was salmenu or salmine. On the same principle they must have said for fine flour of cinnamon canelmine, which was no doubttr ansposed and corrupted into cameline.
The third. There was another sauce known at the English court of Richard II. as Cyne, Cynee, Syne, Synee, and Sené. If this was not mustard (sinapis), which was formerly called senvy, the name most probably had to do with cinnamon, which appears sometimes, though not always, in the sauce. Note, however, that in this case the name would be derived not from the first syllable of cinnamon, but from China or Sina. To this day the French know cassia as the Chinese cinnamon; and the name of China in connection with cinnamon goes so far back that three hundred years ago we find Scaliger sneering at those learned men who seemed to confound the name of cinnamon or kinnamon with China or Sina. It is possible, therefore, that here we have the origin of the Cynee or Synee which has so much puzzled antiquarians; and if this conjecture should prove to be correct, then Cynee and Cameline are but varieties of one and the same sauce. The chief objection to the explanation is that cinnamon is not always present in Cynee. On the other hand, the readers of this dictionary will have evidence enough before them of names being retained when that which they signified is no more. There is cervelas without brains, orgeat without barley, bisque without pigeons, Cleanliness galantine without galingale, cheesecakes without curd, pomatum without apple, vinegar without wine, blancmanger without fowl, marmalade without quince, capillaire without maidenhair, and vinegar without wine. And why not cynee now and then without cinnamon ?
CIVET (civet de lièvre) is one of the last remains of a very old way of naming dishes. The literal English of it is chives of hare; the meaning is hare stewed with chives or tiny onions. It is a variation of jugged hare: which see.