Have you ever tasted a hint of cinnamon in pasta? Spaghetti?
Asked by
pallen123 (
1519
)
February 22nd, 2010
Recently my kids have complained that spaghetti—some of which we buy from Trader Joes, has a slight cinnamon-ny aftertaste to it. I tried it and they’re right. It does taste a little like cinnamon. Anyone know what I’m talking about? Why?
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22 Answers
Not sure, although sometimes I add the juice of freshly grated ginger to spaghetti for some extra zing.
It’s very nice in the summertime especially.
In the pasta noodle? Or, in a pasta dish? I put cinnamon in Chicken Captain and serve it over pasta.
No, but once my housemate threw a lot of cinnamon in the weekly household chili instead of chili powder, and we had to eat it because we were too poor to start over. It wasn’t that yummy.
sounds pretty rough! Try some different sauce! Bring that stuff back.
In some other parts of the world, it is not uncommon to use a touch of cinnamon in savory dishes. Here in the US it’s commonly used for sweet dishes only.
Many Middle Eastern as well as some Meditteranean recipes use it even in tomato based sauces.
However, as Michael Symon (newest Iron Chef guy on FN) points out in his recently published cookbook, it must be used in very small amounts or it’s far too easy to ruin a dish with too much. For this reason, he prefers to use the sticks instead of the powder form as it gives more control. This way one can taste as you go and pull it out before it becomes overpowering.
It looks like someone at the factory got a bit carried away with the ground Ginger :)
If it’s Trader Joes brand, you should let them know so they can make adjustments accordingly.
Cincinnati style chili has both cinnamon and chocolate in it.
Erm..no. Cinnamon=dessert.
No, but I use it in my chili recipes. Cinnamon can be savory as well as sweet, @Val123.
YES~!!! I am allergic to cinnamon, and I always taste a hint of it in Trader Joe’s Spaghetti, it also makes my mouth burn, like cinnamon does. They must use some sort of cinnamon to make their noodles! Very strange, I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed!
No, but I have tried making my sauce with a touch of cumin! Yummy. Mexican spaghetti!
Yes—we have been tasting cinnamon in our pasta—not great at all! It definitely happened w/our Trader Joe’s Pasta, but also with our Costco pasta—super bummer! I think there must be some mass producer out there who isn’t cleaning their line well between their cookies and pasta runs…. Whoever they are—they sure do provide a lot of pasta to different companies!
YES! I’ve been googling this for months. I thought it may have something to do with the “durum semolina” that it is made from , but got nothing from google about that. Will not buy Trader Joes pasta ever again. Not only did I taste the cinnamon, but the pasta ruined a garlic shrimp dish. I think the first 10 or 11 responses didn’t even read your question properly before sending their unhelpful response. You and your kids are not crazy. Trader Joes has strange tasting pasta!
Trader Joe’s pasta has some kind of sweet flavor. I noticed a sweet aroma when cooking it as well. Other posters elsewhere suggest it might be a nutmeg flavor. I think it’s awful.
I think it’s more of a hint of saffron, maybe. Whatever it is, I love the distinct smell and flavor of Trader’s Joe’s pasta.
I do, and not just Tarder Joe’s pasta. Maybe the taste of semolina is somehow similar?
You’re not going cracy, I taste and smell it as well, it’s more like nutmeg to me. I noticed it the first time in Trador Joes pasta, but tonight in Ronzoni spaghetti also!! I’ve cooked dried pasta for many, many years and this is just very recent. Maybe a preservative that gives off this scent when boiled…??? very annoying! I’ll buy several different types of pasta to find the ones that do not give off this nutmeg scent
YES! Me, my family, and my friends all taste the cinnamon/nutmeg taste too. It’s awful and can REALLY mess up a good pasta dish. I read somewhere else where someone on our same page called their dish alfredo eggnog and I concur. I don’t know why anyone would actually want that taste?? And the answers to this question are just inane. Did people not understand the question??? So annoying. I can’t find an answer anywhere but I will get to the bottom of it because I’m so curious. I mainly find it in the Trader Joe’s brand of noodles but occasionally in other cheap brands. I’m just glad to know it’s not just us that taste in the TJ’s brand specifically. Thanks!
I cooked wheat pasta from Costco tonight and thought I was going crazy because when I drained the noodles I got a very strong odor of cinnamon. When I served it my daughter took one bit and announced “why is there cinnamon in the spaghetti”?. Then we were all smelling the pasta and you most definitely smell the cinnamon.
Courmarin is probably the culprit. Naturally occurring and sometimes in some plants that get caught up in the harvesting of wheat. “A “cinnamon-like’’ off-odor, first noticed in baked bread and later also detected in the bread wheat flour, was found to be caused by the presence of as much as 3.6 ppm of coumarin occurring in the wheat flour. The coumarin apparently results from the presence of clover (Melilotus) seeds occurring with the wheat… However, coumarin does not seem to have been reported before as a component of bread, flour, or wheat. ”
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jf60215a071
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