Cinnamon in the air

Santa Claus may never have known the ancient trade route - who really knows? - but the Christmas season and the centuries-old spice trade share a common flavor thanks to the land we now know as Sri Lanka, Mike Peters reports.

You can't make gingerbread without it. Or pumpkin pie. Or mulled wine. Or those glazed sweet potatoes that find their way to holiday tables at the end of December.

"It", of course, is cinnamon, a bestseller on grocery shelves. Second globally only to black pepper among the spices, according to US food giant McCormick, cinnamon was once rare indeed, a flavoring so prized that medieval traders literally died to collect the tree bark that produces it.