March 12, 2020 • 34 mins
The history and science behind vanilla is anything but bland. Anney and Lauren explore how the fruit of a rare orchid captured the world's fancy, and to what lengths researchers go to replicate the flavor.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to save our production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any Rees and I'm Lauren voc Obam, and today
we've got a classic episode for you about Vanilla. Yes,
because I am jet setting off to Montreal, where I
think the temperature is tin actual degrees fahrenheit, So perfect timing.
(00:29):
I'm excited. Yeah, yeah, I mean you're gonna want some
warm and toasty baked goods while you're there, That's true.
So if any listeners have any suggestions, you can send
them my way. Absolutely. Oh always always send us food
suggestions for wherever you are. Yes, always welcome. It's olcome
(00:50):
when we were doing our like what's going on in
the world of Vanilla. One of the news items I
found relates to a recent episode on pancakes. I up
how introduced the line of cereal based pancakes, most of
which come with vanilla syrup. Okay, oh man, you've got
so many options. I think that's almost tin options, Magical
(01:14):
Marshmallow Kids, Combo, cinnamon toast crunch, milkshake, fruity Lucky Charms pancakes.
So are there like chunks of cereal in the pancakes?
I don't want that's on the top Oh, it's on
the top. It's like a topping and that's fine, in
between the stacks of the pancakes themselves. Okay, that's fine.
(01:35):
Or I mean, I don't know do what you want
with your pancakes. I can't tell you what to do.
We have no authority in that realm, are very very
little at any rate. Um yeah, I could. I couldn't
really find any updated vanilla numbers. We first did this
episode back in and the vanilla market was in quite
a flux, as you will here in this episode. Um
(01:55):
but yeah, from a brief google, I mean, I found
a headline about Vanilla ICE's ex wife and like alimony
payments or something. But I do not have the most
direct interest to this our food podcast. No, but it
was definitely a thorn in my side doing the research
for this. I remember, so thanks, but no thanks, Vanilla.
(02:18):
I need my food facts. Well, speaking of those, yes,
a former Lauren and Annie have have quite a few
of them, so we will let them take it away. Hello,
(02:42):
and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Annie Reeves and I'm
Lauren vogel Bomb and this is our not so Vanilla
Vanilla episode. That's right, We're tackling vanilla, and we're going
to talk about why vanilla has got kind of a
bad connotation to it as being born and plant. Right,
it's not at all. No, no, nobody, and thank you too,
listener Gina for suggesting. She also sent in a book suggestion,
(03:05):
Vanilla queen. We really need to start up the food
Stuff Book Club. Oh yeah, our our list of books
is long and ever growing. Yeah, because I don't read
about food enough. No, let's definitely start a book. Oh
it would be delightful though. Okay, alright, So vanilla, yes first, yes,
Oh indeed, and most importantly, it's the flavor of America's
(03:28):
favorite ice cream. Yeah, which I found a little surprising.
But according to the International ice Cream Association, So I
guess they would know. Of americans favorite vanilla followed by
chocolate with an eight point nine per cent. I guess
it's spread after after vanilla. Many categories of ice cream flavor.
My favorite, if I had to choose a general one
(03:50):
is chocolate, and my little brothers was vanilla. And will
you see it in some pretty serious arguments about it,
because I'd be trying to convince him why he was
wrong like that, you're just frong chocolate involves vanilla flavoring,
and it's also got chocolate flavor exactly right. It's science.
It's it's scientifically proven that you're wrong, Bobby, if you're listening.
(04:11):
Um So, vanilla, it's a species of the orchid family.
The bean itself comes from a seed pot of the
evergreen climbing orchids that sort of looked like vines. Bonds
that can reach up to one and five ft are
thirty two meters. Yeah. The kind of getting stores specifically
comes from one of three species, the largest share being
(04:35):
vanilla plant foila a k. Mexican or bourbon vanilla. But
you can find vanilla to heat, nous a ka to
heat vanilla, and sometimes vanilla pompona a k a West
Indian vanilla. About three fourths of vanilla we by today
comes from Madagascar and Reyjon, which is an island off
the coast of Madagascar. It used to be named Bourbon
(04:57):
Hance bourbon vanilla. That's why I have always wondered that
it also does have a little bit of a bourbony
flavor to it. Yeah, it kind of does. Most of
the rest of our vanilla supply comes from Mexico and Tahiti. Yeah.
The main flavor compound in vanilla is called vanilla, and
it can be created in labs pretty cheaply and easily.
But there are over two hundred and fifty flavor and
(05:19):
aroma compounds in vanilla pods. Experts talk about Vanilla's TAROI yeah,
so much to are happening in these episodes. There are
Tahitian vanilla has notes of cherry florals, smoke, and marshmallow.
Madagascar vanilla has notes of rum and bourbon, prunes and wood,
and Mexican is a little bit more subtle of a vanilla.
(05:42):
It's got notes of wood, spice and nutmeg and McCormick.
I'm sure most of you have heard of this. It's
like that company, one of the brands of spices and stuff. Yeah,
and they sell vanilla and they have a chart of
vanilla tasting chart and it's like big Wheel. And I
spent far too much time reading like all of the descriptions,
(06:05):
and I mean, vanilla tasting. Why is that not a thing?
It can it be a thing? Let's make it a thing. Okay,
there aren't too many orchids you can eat, but this
happens to be one of them. It's a bit sensitive
of a plant as well. It needs to be in
a tropical or sub chocoal climate. Like seriously, it's not
able to grow ten to twenty degrees north or south
(06:26):
of the equator, or it's only able to grow there. Yes,
otherwise that would be like a lot of vanilla. You know,
we're looking at the different, the opposite problem. It's native
to the Caribbean and parts of South and Central America,
and the blooming season last a couple of months, with
a handful of fragile flowers of green or yellow or
(06:47):
white blossoming each day. The flowers are so fragile that
they can only be pollinated naturally in the wild by
a species of many pond b are possibly the eu
glossin bees. These are tiny little bee and maybe birds
can pollinate them too, but either way, these pollinators only
exist in Mexico, which means that vanilla beans grown elsewhere
(07:08):
must be hand pollinated. They are very often hand pollinated
in Mexico to to ensure production quantities. Some expert farmers
say that as few as five of the flowers on
any given plant should be pollinated in order to achieve
the best quality fruit. Mm hm oh. And did we
mention the flower is only open one day a year,
(07:33):
one day year, one morning a year. In fact, yes,
the flowers closed by the afternoon. And if they weren't
pollinated in that too, any time, any window so long,
they just fall off and die. Yeah, yeah, no fruit,
it's wild to me. Yeah that the flowers themselves, by
the way, are very neutral y scented. Yes. The fruit part,
(07:55):
as the name pod implies, looks forty pod like, reaching
up to eight inches or twenty centem years, generally over
a month to a month and a half long on period,
but it could be much longer, like nine months. Um.
Farmers harvest them when they're an unniped greenish goldish color,
and at that point they're pretty bland. Their their flavor
and characteristic rich brown color is developed during this whole
(08:16):
post harvest curing process that depends on heat and enzymes
in the beans and bacteria poop maybe, oh, Lauren all
every time, it's exciting, okay, so um. After vanilla beans
are harvested, they go through this production process of cooking, sweating, drying,
(08:37):
and curing, and growers around the world have developed different methods,
but but basically first You sort the pods by length,
then soak them in hot water or expose them to
heavy sunlight to reach an internal temperature of about sixty
five degrees celsius or that's about a hundred and fifty
degrees fahrenheit. To kill the beans um, stopping any potential
(08:58):
growth processes and killing off most bacteria or fungi that
might be floating around in there. Um. Then sweat them,
meaning you keep the beans hot and not too dry
and well covered at around like fifty degrees celsius a
k ae fahrenheit. This let's a number of ensmatic processes
begin to happen inside the beans. Their cellular structures begin
(09:19):
breaking down. It also allows a few heat tolerant bacteria
to thrive. You then dry the beans out very very slowly.
You want them to decrease to about fift of their
original water weight. Depending on their size and quality, and
depending on the farming traditions, This may be done by
setting the beans out in the sun for a single
(09:39):
hour every day. It's really intensive. The final step is
conditioning or curing the beans by keeping them warm and
kind of slightly humid, and this continues the flavor and
aroma development. Process. Once they're cured, venlo beans can keep
for like two to ten years, depending on how careful
you are about it, and all of this research is
(10:01):
being done into the role of those heat resistant bacteria
in the development of these flavors. Um Tests and cultures
taken from a few different bean processors around the world
have found differing populations of bacteria, but a few strains
of Baccyllus were commonly dominant, and scientists think that the
bacteria player role in helping break down cellular structures of
(10:23):
the vanilla beans, thus releasing some of the compounds or
precurses precurses to the compounds that give vanilla all of
its flavor and aroma um. The bacteria might also help
process some of those precursors into their final forms, and
they might help keep the temperature of the curing beans
warm enough to prevent the growth of unwanted fungi and bacteria.
(10:46):
The whole shebang takes like five to eight months and
is just super person nickety um. These traditional manual methods
are still used by many farmers and production firms, mixed
in with a little bit of like modern sterilization and
climate control technologies. Depending on the size and the swagger
of the operation. Um, you have to keep careful track
(11:07):
of each individual vanilla bean pods development like any sign
of mold growth will send a being all way back
to the killing stage. My goodness, because of all the
time and work vanilla takes. It's the second costliest spice
at around pound. First. Oh, I'm glad you're asked. It's saffron. Oh,
(11:28):
of course, saffron. Of course, whole other episode. Vanilla powder
is what you get after grinding whole vanilla beans, and
vanilla extract is chopped up and macerated beans aged in
solution to bring out the flavor. According to the FDA,
to qualify as pure vanilla extract, there needs to be
thirteen point three five ounces of vanilla beans for every
(11:50):
gallon while extraction is happening in alcohol. That primary flavor compound,
vanilla makes up only one too of any given vanilla bean.
Most of this processing happens in factories outside of the
countries that actually produce vanilla, which has traditionally meant that
the farmers who do the bulk of the labor see
(12:11):
a minority of the profits. That's starting to change, but
it is slow going. Unfortunately, thanks in part to the
need to add flavor to low carb or low fat
products and in part because we just love it. Vanilla
are vanilla flavoring, to be more precise, is in over
eighteen thousand products worldwide. Yeah, and about that flavoring thing, Yeah,
(12:36):
bolt products with vanilla in the name. You know, your
vanilla wayfers, your vanilla putting, even your cheap vanilla vodka.
They don't contain the real thing. No, orchids were harmed
in the making of those products. That's in part, at
least because the labor intensiveness and priceiness of vanilla, which
means we don't actually produce a whole lot of it.
About two thousand metric tons may sound like a lot
(12:57):
in the face of vanilla demand, it really isn't that
the ethetic stuff We produce over twenty metric tons of
that a year. The balance between naturally and synthetically sourced
vanilla is changing, though, due to that whole marketing and
or consumer pushed towards all natural ingredients. In the past
five years, consumer interest has pushed huge companies like Nestlee
(13:20):
and Hershey's to switch back to naturally sourced vanillen, which
has driven the cost of vanilla beans up to more
than ten times what it used to be. Invitation. Vanilla,
by the way, is entirely composed of the ever mysterious
artificial flavorings. Okay, okay, So in vanilla beans, you get
a molecule of vanilla by breaking down a sugary molecule
(13:43):
of of gluco vanillen, But there are lots of other
ways to get the same molecule. You can use easter
bacteria to to ferment, like an oil from cloves or
this acid from rice brand. If they're fed one of
these things, these specialized and often proprietary microorganism basically poop
vanillen um. Those are considered natural vanillen. You can also
(14:06):
heat and pressure treat and alcohol that comes from spruce
trees to produce vanillen. As of the nineteen nineties, a
lot of the world's vanlan was actually a byproduct of
the wood, pulp and paper industries. Uh. And you can
synthesize vanilin in a lab using an oil that's a
byproduct of the petroleum industry. Those last two are considered artificial,
(14:26):
and the petroleum version is the cheapest of the lot
by far. Especially since wooden paper industries have been working
to reduce waste over the past couple decades. Um. I
was reading ahead in the outline, and I'm very glad.
I was hoping that you would answer this question. Okay, alright, So,
so I heard that the artificial stuff is made from
(14:49):
beaver butt glands. Is that true? Is it? No? Well
there you go. Well, okay, well, it is true that
beavers produce a kind of vanilla scented substance in a
gland near the base of your tails. But believe it
or not, it's not actually financially viable to milk beaver
glands at a rate that would satisfy the world's interesting flavoring.
I know, weird them. This This stuff is called castoreum,
(15:15):
and beavers use it to mark their territory and to
impress humans by smelling just absolutely lovely. Beaver smell really nice.
I had no idea me neither. Castorium did see some
used in the eighteen hundreds as a perfume ingredient and
occasional food additive, especially during the time when beaver fur
was just all the rage in fashion, and so they
(15:35):
were thus being hunted in large numbers and It does
still show up sometimes in the fragrance industry, but it's
pretty uncommon. Well, there you go, question answered. I'm sure
all of you are waiting to know. Yes, in ice cream,
which actually does play a big part in the story
of vanilla, apart from the silly pole we wanted to
throw in there. Um, tastesters can tell the difference between
(15:58):
vanilla and vanilla the form are being more distinct and
flavorful than the ladder, which often ended up with the
descriptor bland or non distinct attached to it. However, and
things like cakes that are heated, tasters generally couldn't tell
the difference. Yeah. Oh, and I did want to put
in here that vanilla ice cream is one of the
few products here in the US that the FDA says
(16:19):
must contain natural vanilla if it doesn't want to have
to specify artificial vanilla and its name. I was at
the grocery store today and I noticed this, and also
so many things claiming to have flex of vanilla beans
in there. Anyway, Uh, the US, with our notorious sweet tooth,
is the largest importer of vanilla. On average five point
(16:41):
four grahams a person which comes out to sixty eight
million vanilla beans a year. Yeah, okay, so that's a lot.
That's the intro. Yeah, oh welcome. This is one of
those long and twisty outlines that it's like, oh goodness,
you never know, we're not I will take you. Yeah, well,
except we do know where it's going to take us. Well,
(17:01):
first of all, because we wrote it. And second of
all because right now it's taking us towards a quick
break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Thank you sponsored. All right, well, let's let's look at
(17:24):
the history of vanilla. It's it's hard to pin down.
It's a difficult one. Yeah, because vanillan does not leave
behind a chemical residue like chocolate does. Thank you chocolate. Um.
That being said, here's what historians have pieced together about
vanilla's history. So, the Maya in the southeast of Mexico
(17:44):
and Central America were the first to grow vanilla for
use as a cacao flavoring as as far back as
six thousand BC. That's mostly for for cocoa as a
drink sweetened with honey, and researchers think that vanilla was
originally reserved for people of very high political position. They
(18:05):
put ground up vanilla orchid and necklaces to ward off
illness or other bad health stuff. They used it as
a fragrance, stimulant and insector pill in a medicine, mixed
it with copal resin and burned it as an incense,
and of course in aphrodisiac obviously obviously. However, the Totonac
people in Vera Cruz, Mexico are often cited as the
(18:25):
first to cultivate banilla beans and to figure out that
they became more flavorful when sweated, primarily for medicinal use.
When the Aztecs took over the Totonac in the fifteenth century,
the Totenac were forced to pay tribute to the Aztecs
in the form of thousands and thousands of vanilla beans,
which they called black flower after what happens to the
(18:47):
flower once the fruit is harvested. Unlike the Totenknak, the
Aztec used vanilla for flavor, especially in the chocolate drink
that they called chuckle Attle. Did I say that correctly?
I think so saw it. The Totana believed that vanilla
was a gift from the gods and a source of
eternal happiness. Their mythology included the tale of how the
(19:09):
vanilla or kid came to be That go something like this.
Once about the time Princess Donut fell head over heels
in love. Her father refused to allow her allow her
to marry said love, however, on accounts of him being
a puny mortal, so the couple eloped. No nattier not
good because they both were captured in Their heads were
(19:31):
chopped clean off, their blood soaked into the earth, and
from that spot grew the first vanilla orchid. The Tota
saw it as their duty to take care of and
protect these vines and to make them productive through the
marriage of vanilla, which is a more pleasant way of
saying collination. That's a lovely myth. Yeah, well, I mean,
(19:52):
I mean there's heads getting chopped off. I mean, not
for the two people involved, but it's sort of sweet, yeah, yeah,
kind of. When this banish arrived in fifteen nineteen, frequent
food stuff cameo. Hernan Cortez ran into it at Vera Cruz,
and he also ran into the Totonac. Some sources say
that Montezuma served Cortez Cacao in fifteen twenty, while others
(20:14):
say that the Totonac teamed up the Spanish to overthrow
the Aztecs. Either way, Vanilla's name comes from Spanish vanilla,
which translates to little pod or in Latin vagina. There's
actually a lot of references to vagina, including the nine months,
the possible nine months it takes. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, well
(20:36):
I think they come back to that, okay, perfect um.
Around this time, vanilla was introduced to Asia and Africa
courtesy of the Spanish and Portuguese. And by introduced to
we almost certainly mean smuggled out to because yeah, a
lot of the Mexican people were trying to keep a
lockdown on that kind of thing. Yes, they absolutely were.
(20:57):
Cortez brought vanilla back with him to Europe, and in Teene,
the first written description of vanilla was pinned by Bernardino
de Sahagun and Bernard Diaz. Europeans were totally into adding
vanilla in to hot chocolate as a replacement for cinnamon
once they accepted hot chocolate, which did take a minute. Yeah,
one Spanish fellow dubbed it a drink for pigs. Oh,
(21:19):
I know, it's just hot chocolate. That's such strong emotion.
They also mixed it with tobacco, and you say it
as a nurse stimulant and surprise and apphronusiac. Some historians
think partly due to the vagina Latin root word, which
is the saddest reason ever to use something as an appronusiac. Yeah, well,
I guess it's not the satis reason. Never, it's not
(21:39):
a great reason. It's not very well founded. In sixteen
o two, with hopes of appeasing Queen Elizabeth, the first
sweet tooth, her apothecary and head of the apothecary, Hugh Morgan,
came up with sweetmeats flavored solely with vanilla. Queen Elizabeth
I loved, which meant that other people wanted to try them,
(22:02):
which led to vanilla spreading throughout Europe. Alcoholic beverages, tobacco,
and perfumes got the vanilla treatment in seventeen hundreds. In
seventeen fifty four we get the first recorded use of
the word vanilla from botanist Philip Miller's book The Gardener's Dictionary.
A little less than ten years later, in seventeen sixty two,
a German physician named Bazaar Zimmerman published a work that
(22:25):
claimed that after a three and forty two impotent men
drank vanilla, they quote changed into astonishing lovers of at
least as many women. M hmm, interesting study. Yeah, it
was so popular as an aphrodisiac. It's it was like
the one for a long time, you know. That's also
(22:46):
if we were kind of plotting a food stuff bingo
card and uh oh yeah, and I think aphrodisiac has
to be on there. Absolutely does. Around eighteen hundred, a
French priest smuggled an orchid out of Mexico, Yes, smuggle intrigue.
Spanish controlled Nextico had a monopoly on vanilla and the
plants were under an export ban, but this guy got
(23:08):
him out to Tahiti and from there the French would
try to cultivate them in multiple locations throughout the Pacific
and Indian oceans. Vanilla intrigue. And this brings us to
someone else who makes a frequent cameo and food stuff episodes.
But first, one last break for a word from our sponsor.
(23:36):
Then we're back. Thank you sponsoring. Yes, so you'll never
guess who's coming up again. Oh you probably will. It's
Thomas Jefferson. Oh yeah, yep, and his mini galivants across France,
he encountered ice cream flavored with vanilla, which had by
then spread to much of Europe with the help of
Queen Elizabeth the First. Jefferson loved the stuff so much
(23:56):
he even wrote down a recipe for vanilla ice cream
fairly similar to how we make it today that you
can find in the library of congress Man Jefferson brought
back waffles and vanilla ice cream and wine jellies from France.
He's I like, despite a number of other things, I
would have totally gone to his parties, like a waffle
(24:16):
for all, like with vanilla ice cream on the side
and some wine jellies to help you loosen up a bit. Yeah,
that's a lot of sugar, but it'd be fun at first. Yes,
you know, he didn't have Netflix back then. You had
to make your own fun. It's true. Also, he got
the pods from Paris, but they probably originally came from
Central America. So yeah. In eighteen o five, Vanilla pops
(24:39):
up and its first cookbook, and it's one we've talked
about before, Hannah Glasses, the odch of Cookery. It basically
called for adding vanilla to hot chocolate and if you're
seeing a theme here, vanilla and chocolate, vanilla and hot chocolate.
It was used to cut like the bitterness, right right, Yeah.
It was a popular way to cut the bitterness without
needing to add too much sugar exactly, which was expensive.
Right U. Another cookbook we've mentioned, Mary Randolph's eighteen twenty four,
(25:03):
The Virgin Housewife. It's not the Virgin Housewife. It is
the Virginia Housewife. I just have a aphrodisiac on the brain.
It came with the first written American recipe for vanilla
ice cream, and Europeans, of course for attempting to grow
their own vanilla, but they found the seeds they produced
weren't flavorful due to the totonac successfully keeping the process
(25:24):
of curing a secret, and also because the bee needed
for vanilla pollination could be found in Europe, or at
least the bee we think needed for vanilla poll nation um.
Europe's increasing demand for vanilla, which they nicknamed chocolate drug,
caused a depletion of wild vanilla, and as a result,
the total Na built vanilla farms in the seventeen sixties.
(25:44):
All of these things allowed them to maintain their position
as the primary producer of vanilla. From the seventeen sixties
to the eighteen forties. Europeans were determined, however, to find
a way to cultivate their own flavorful of vanilla. In
eighteen nineteen, some Frenchmen sent vanilla beans to the French
controlled Reunion on and Mauritius Islands, crossing their fingers would
go there. Years later, in forty one, on the island
(26:06):
of Reunion, twelve year old slave Edmund Albius figured out
hand pollination. Jean Michel Claude Richard, a famous French botanist,
immediately to credit immediately for teaching Albius this method of uh,
and in later recountings of the story some papers claimed
Albius was white. When slavory was abolished in eighteen forty eight,
(26:32):
an impoverished Albius died soon after, so he didn't make
any money off of what was basically like the invention
that made vanilla possible. Right. This also means that possibly
most of our vanilla supply can be traced back to
that first cutting of a vanilla orchid from Paris's Jordan
(26:52):
d plant, possibly which is cool to think. The discovery
of hand poll nation was the catalyst. First several things. First,
it toppled Mexico's monopoly of the vanilla trade. Second, the
French sent vanilla orchids, first to the Comoros Islands and
then to Madagascar with instructions and how to cultivate them.
(27:12):
The production of vanilla in these locations sailed past Mexico's
by eighteen seventy nine, and it only took until eighteen
ninety eight for them to supply of the world's vanilla
two hundred metric tons worth. There were other factors that
contributed to Mexico's loss of their lead in the trade.
Around that time, its coastal rainforests were being stripped bare
(27:32):
by the tropical wood industry. A cedar and mahogany trees
were part of vanilla orchids natural climbing habitat, and suddenly
all that was gone. Yeah, and this just so happened
to coincide with an exponential increase in demand for vanilla
as its solidified its place as the preferred ice cream flavor,
and with the eight six introduction of a little beverage
(27:54):
you might have heard of, Coca cola. What it's part
of that secret recipe it is, it's one of the
few things so is cinnamon. Uh one of the few
things that they will admit is in there. Yep. The
esteemed brain tonic and intellectual beverage called for vanilla. Vanilla
was added to all kinds of things as the availability
of it increased. Stepping back a bit, Joseph Burnett soaked
(28:19):
some vanilla beans and grain, alcohol and water in eighteen
forty seven and got vanilla extract, and German scientists isolated
the first synthetic vanilla that vanilla in eighteen seventy four
from cheaper sources like common Yeah. Sure, yeah whatever. Um.
In a case of too little, too late, the Academy
of Sciences and Gastronomic Arts recognized the total knock for
(28:43):
their role in bringing vanilla and the process behind cultivating
it to the world in oh, I mean yeah, they
did really good job keeping it hidden for a while. Um.
By some estimates, by the time Yo came around, of
all ice cream in the US was vanilla. Oh wow. Yeah.
(29:06):
A typhoon allowed to a substantial increase in vanilla's market
price in the seventies, a price level they maintained untild.
The cartel that had controlled vanilla's pricing and distribution of
vanilla since the nineteen thirties fell apart in n That
cartel was toppled by the International Monetary Fund and an
effort to boost global competition and vanilla intrigue. Indeed, prices
(29:30):
fell in the following years to twenty dollars a kilo
a se decrease. This changed when market factors like the
boom in premium ice creams by companies like Ben and
Jerry's and Hagandah's caused demand to increase some fifty pcent
from nineteen nine through two thousand. Uh. This was immediately
followed by another typhoon. Another typhoon struck in two thousand,
(29:55):
coupled with political instability and regions that grew vanilla and
bad weather in general. All this caused the price of
vanilla to shoot up to five hundred dollars sequilo and
two thousand four. By two five, the prizes back down
to forty dollars quilo due to a number of factors
like more countries trying their hand at vanilla production and
increased demand for imitation vanilla. But as you can see,
(30:18):
this is a product subject to some serious pricing fluctuation.
Oh yeah, and that's actually been particularly intense in the
past few years because the demand for artificial vanillen um
and also taxation of natural vanilla by the government was
so great during the nineteen nineties that orchid farmers in
Madagascar abandoned their plantations. Real vanilla was not worth the
(30:43):
cost of production to them. This happened in Mexico to
from the nineteen seventies on. Wages were so much higher
institutions and oil industries there that yeah, vanilla production just
did not make sense. That flipped when those big companies
like Nestlie started buying up pods again, as suddenly there
wasn't nearly enough supply to meet demand and the price skyrocketed,
especially because all those farms had shut down and it
(31:05):
can take three to five years for a new or
rebuilt production to start producing pods. This has created some
really bizarre economic effects. The National Central Bank of Madagascar
actually ran out of the large bills that vanilla traders
used to pay farmers, with crops being stolen from fields,
some farmers harvesting pods too early to produce good quality vanaa,
(31:28):
and weather is still an issue, especially given the rate
at which climate change is messing up our weather patterns. Uh.
Cyclone that had Madagascar this March destroyed about a third
of the vanilla crop, pushing demand and prices even higher.
All of this means that some researchers are working on
developing genetically modified orchids that would produce more vanilla to
(31:50):
help offset some of these fluctuations. And another interesting science thing,
Oh yeah, two thousands six study found that vanilla was
effective in preventing bacteria quorum sensing, which is something bacteria
do that coordinates behaviors like virulence and antibiotic resistance. So
(32:10):
scientists think that vanilla intake could be useful in preventing
bacterial pathogenesis. Yeah, very very very early, but still oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's coorum sensing is really fascinating. It's basically bacterial communication
and lots of great implications there. That is, it was
really cool to run into you. Like I said, you
never know what a topic is going to take you.
(32:31):
Who knew we'd be talking about bacteria coorum sensing in
vanilla episode? Not me, But that brings us to the
present with vanilla everywhere and all kinds of things and
our appetite for it apparently on ending. Yeah yeah, um
so that's the story of vanilla. It is. It is
quite a twisty turny one. Uh and kind of guys
(32:51):
probably know. But the reason that at the beginning of
the podcast why vanilla is like vanilla, bland and distinct
whatever is because it's it's everywhere, but also because it's
usually that invitation stuff or not right. We've got a
discussion with one of your friends about this, and he
had some strong feelings about how vanilla was very good
and not vanilla at all. Yeah, you gotta watch out
(33:15):
for cook industry. Food industry. Friends find they have opinions,
chefs have opinions. Sometimes it's weird, very weird. We have
arrived at the end of this classic episode. We hope
you enjoyed it. Yes, yeah, it's a it's a wild
ride full of slavery and better times than that. Yes, yes, yes,
(33:43):
whis true? Um and also other things like why does
vanilla mean bland? It can be so much more than that. Right,
let's let's you know we said it, then I'm going
to say it again. Let's bring back the word vanilla.
It shouldn't mean bland, and it should mean lovely and
rare and exciting and delicious. I think we can do this. Okay,
(34:07):
I think we can do this, but your help, listeners,
and if you want to email is about your efforts.
You can. Our email is Hello at savor pod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram, where our handle is at savor pod and
we do hope to hear from you. Savor is production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
(34:27):
you can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thank you
to our super producers Dylan Vegan and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots of
more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to save our production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any Rees and I'm Lauren voc Obam, and today
we've got a classic episode for you about Vanilla. Yes,
because I am jet setting off to Montreal, where I
think the temperature is tin actual degrees fahrenheit, So perfect timing.
(00:29):
I'm excited. Yeah, yeah, I mean you're gonna want some
warm and toasty baked goods while you're there, That's true.
So if any listeners have any suggestions, you can send
them my way. Absolutely. Oh always always send us food
suggestions for wherever you are. Yes, always welcome. It's olcome
(00:50):
when we were doing our like what's going on in
the world of Vanilla. One of the news items I
found relates to a recent episode on pancakes. I up
how introduced the line of cereal based pancakes, most of
which come with vanilla syrup. Okay, oh man, you've got
so many options. I think that's almost tin options, Magical
(01:14):
Marshmallow Kids, Combo, cinnamon toast crunch, milkshake, fruity Lucky Charms pancakes.
So are there like chunks of cereal in the pancakes?
I don't want that's on the top Oh, it's on
the top. It's like a topping and that's fine, in
between the stacks of the pancakes themselves. Okay, that's fine.
(01:35):
Or I mean, I don't know do what you want
with your pancakes. I can't tell you what to do.
We have no authority in that realm, are very very
little at any rate. Um yeah, I could. I couldn't
really find any updated vanilla numbers. We first did this
episode back in and the vanilla market was in quite
a flux, as you will here in this episode. Um
(01:55):
but yeah, from a brief google, I mean, I found
a headline about Vanilla ICE's ex wife and like alimony
payments or something. But I do not have the most
direct interest to this our food podcast. No, but it
was definitely a thorn in my side doing the research
for this. I remember, so thanks, but no thanks, Vanilla.
(02:18):
I need my food facts. Well, speaking of those, yes,
a former Lauren and Annie have have quite a few
of them, so we will let them take it away. Hello,
(02:42):
and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Annie Reeves and I'm
Lauren vogel Bomb and this is our not so Vanilla
Vanilla episode. That's right, We're tackling vanilla, and we're going
to talk about why vanilla has got kind of a
bad connotation to it as being born and plant. Right,
it's not at all. No, no, nobody, and thank you too,
listener Gina for suggesting. She also sent in a book suggestion,
(03:05):
Vanilla queen. We really need to start up the food
Stuff Book Club. Oh yeah, our our list of books
is long and ever growing. Yeah, because I don't read
about food enough. No, let's definitely start a book. Oh
it would be delightful though. Okay, alright, So vanilla, yes first, yes,
Oh indeed, and most importantly, it's the flavor of America's
(03:28):
favorite ice cream. Yeah, which I found a little surprising.
But according to the International ice Cream Association, So I
guess they would know. Of americans favorite vanilla followed by
chocolate with an eight point nine per cent. I guess
it's spread after after vanilla. Many categories of ice cream flavor.
My favorite, if I had to choose a general one
(03:50):
is chocolate, and my little brothers was vanilla. And will
you see it in some pretty serious arguments about it,
because I'd be trying to convince him why he was
wrong like that, you're just frong chocolate involves vanilla flavoring,
and it's also got chocolate flavor exactly right. It's science.
It's it's scientifically proven that you're wrong, Bobby, if you're listening.
(04:11):
Um So, vanilla, it's a species of the orchid family.
The bean itself comes from a seed pot of the
evergreen climbing orchids that sort of looked like vines. Bonds
that can reach up to one and five ft are
thirty two meters. Yeah. The kind of getting stores specifically
comes from one of three species, the largest share being
(04:35):
vanilla plant foila a k. Mexican or bourbon vanilla. But
you can find vanilla to heat, nous a ka to
heat vanilla, and sometimes vanilla pompona a k a West
Indian vanilla. About three fourths of vanilla we by today
comes from Madagascar and Reyjon, which is an island off
the coast of Madagascar. It used to be named Bourbon
(04:57):
Hance bourbon vanilla. That's why I have always wondered that
it also does have a little bit of a bourbony
flavor to it. Yeah, it kind of does. Most of
the rest of our vanilla supply comes from Mexico and Tahiti. Yeah.
The main flavor compound in vanilla is called vanilla, and
it can be created in labs pretty cheaply and easily.
But there are over two hundred and fifty flavor and
(05:19):
aroma compounds in vanilla pods. Experts talk about Vanilla's TAROI yeah,
so much to are happening in these episodes. There are
Tahitian vanilla has notes of cherry florals, smoke, and marshmallow.
Madagascar vanilla has notes of rum and bourbon, prunes and wood,
and Mexican is a little bit more subtle of a vanilla.
(05:42):
It's got notes of wood, spice and nutmeg and McCormick.
I'm sure most of you have heard of this. It's
like that company, one of the brands of spices and stuff. Yeah,
and they sell vanilla and they have a chart of
vanilla tasting chart and it's like big Wheel. And I
spent far too much time reading like all of the descriptions,
(06:05):
and I mean, vanilla tasting. Why is that not a thing?
It can it be a thing? Let's make it a thing. Okay,
there aren't too many orchids you can eat, but this
happens to be one of them. It's a bit sensitive
of a plant as well. It needs to be in
a tropical or sub chocoal climate. Like seriously, it's not
able to grow ten to twenty degrees north or south
(06:26):
of the equator, or it's only able to grow there. Yes,
otherwise that would be like a lot of vanilla. You know,
we're looking at the different, the opposite problem. It's native
to the Caribbean and parts of South and Central America,
and the blooming season last a couple of months, with
a handful of fragile flowers of green or yellow or
(06:47):
white blossoming each day. The flowers are so fragile that
they can only be pollinated naturally in the wild by
a species of many pond b are possibly the eu
glossin bees. These are tiny little bee and maybe birds
can pollinate them too, but either way, these pollinators only
exist in Mexico, which means that vanilla beans grown elsewhere
(07:08):
must be hand pollinated. They are very often hand pollinated
in Mexico to to ensure production quantities. Some expert farmers
say that as few as five of the flowers on
any given plant should be pollinated in order to achieve
the best quality fruit. Mm hm oh. And did we
mention the flower is only open one day a year,
(07:33):
one day year, one morning a year. In fact, yes,
the flowers closed by the afternoon. And if they weren't
pollinated in that too, any time, any window so long,
they just fall off and die. Yeah, yeah, no fruit,
it's wild to me. Yeah that the flowers themselves, by
the way, are very neutral y scented. Yes. The fruit part,
(07:55):
as the name pod implies, looks forty pod like, reaching
up to eight inches or twenty centem years, generally over
a month to a month and a half long on period,
but it could be much longer, like nine months. Um.
Farmers harvest them when they're an unniped greenish goldish color,
and at that point they're pretty bland. Their their flavor
and characteristic rich brown color is developed during this whole
(08:16):
post harvest curing process that depends on heat and enzymes
in the beans and bacteria poop maybe, oh, Lauren all
every time, it's exciting, okay, so um. After vanilla beans
are harvested, they go through this production process of cooking, sweating, drying,
(08:37):
and curing, and growers around the world have developed different methods,
but but basically first You sort the pods by length,
then soak them in hot water or expose them to
heavy sunlight to reach an internal temperature of about sixty
five degrees celsius or that's about a hundred and fifty
degrees fahrenheit. To kill the beans um, stopping any potential
(08:58):
growth processes and killing off most bacteria or fungi that
might be floating around in there. Um. Then sweat them,
meaning you keep the beans hot and not too dry
and well covered at around like fifty degrees celsius a
k ae fahrenheit. This let's a number of ensmatic processes
begin to happen inside the beans. Their cellular structures begin
(09:19):
breaking down. It also allows a few heat tolerant bacteria
to thrive. You then dry the beans out very very slowly.
You want them to decrease to about fift of their
original water weight. Depending on their size and quality, and
depending on the farming traditions, This may be done by
setting the beans out in the sun for a single
(09:39):
hour every day. It's really intensive. The final step is
conditioning or curing the beans by keeping them warm and
kind of slightly humid, and this continues the flavor and
aroma development. Process. Once they're cured, venlo beans can keep
for like two to ten years, depending on how careful
you are about it, and all of this research is
(10:01):
being done into the role of those heat resistant bacteria
in the development of these flavors. Um Tests and cultures
taken from a few different bean processors around the world
have found differing populations of bacteria, but a few strains
of Baccyllus were commonly dominant, and scientists think that the
bacteria player role in helping break down cellular structures of
(10:23):
the vanilla beans, thus releasing some of the compounds or
precurses precurses to the compounds that give vanilla all of
its flavor and aroma um. The bacteria might also help
process some of those precursors into their final forms, and
they might help keep the temperature of the curing beans
warm enough to prevent the growth of unwanted fungi and bacteria.
(10:46):
The whole shebang takes like five to eight months and
is just super person nickety um. These traditional manual methods
are still used by many farmers and production firms, mixed
in with a little bit of like modern sterilization and
climate control technologies. Depending on the size and the swagger
of the operation. Um, you have to keep careful track
(11:07):
of each individual vanilla bean pods development like any sign
of mold growth will send a being all way back
to the killing stage. My goodness, because of all the
time and work vanilla takes. It's the second costliest spice
at around pound. First. Oh, I'm glad you're asked. It's saffron. Oh,
(11:28):
of course, saffron. Of course, whole other episode. Vanilla powder
is what you get after grinding whole vanilla beans, and
vanilla extract is chopped up and macerated beans aged in
solution to bring out the flavor. According to the FDA,
to qualify as pure vanilla extract, there needs to be
thirteen point three five ounces of vanilla beans for every
(11:50):
gallon while extraction is happening in alcohol. That primary flavor compound,
vanilla makes up only one too of any given vanilla bean.
Most of this processing happens in factories outside of the
countries that actually produce vanilla, which has traditionally meant that
the farmers who do the bulk of the labor see
(12:11):
a minority of the profits. That's starting to change, but
it is slow going. Unfortunately, thanks in part to the
need to add flavor to low carb or low fat
products and in part because we just love it. Vanilla
are vanilla flavoring, to be more precise, is in over
eighteen thousand products worldwide. Yeah, and about that flavoring thing, Yeah,
(12:36):
bolt products with vanilla in the name. You know, your
vanilla wayfers, your vanilla putting, even your cheap vanilla vodka.
They don't contain the real thing. No, orchids were harmed
in the making of those products. That's in part, at
least because the labor intensiveness and priceiness of vanilla, which
means we don't actually produce a whole lot of it.
About two thousand metric tons may sound like a lot
(12:57):
in the face of vanilla demand, it really isn't that
the ethetic stuff We produce over twenty metric tons of
that a year. The balance between naturally and synthetically sourced
vanilla is changing, though, due to that whole marketing and
or consumer pushed towards all natural ingredients. In the past
five years, consumer interest has pushed huge companies like Nestlee
(13:20):
and Hershey's to switch back to naturally sourced vanillen, which
has driven the cost of vanilla beans up to more
than ten times what it used to be. Invitation. Vanilla,
by the way, is entirely composed of the ever mysterious
artificial flavorings. Okay, okay, So in vanilla beans, you get
a molecule of vanilla by breaking down a sugary molecule
(13:43):
of of gluco vanillen, But there are lots of other
ways to get the same molecule. You can use easter
bacteria to to ferment, like an oil from cloves or
this acid from rice brand. If they're fed one of
these things, these specialized and often proprietary microorganism basically poop
vanillen um. Those are considered natural vanillen. You can also
(14:06):
heat and pressure treat and alcohol that comes from spruce
trees to produce vanillen. As of the nineteen nineties, a
lot of the world's vanlan was actually a byproduct of
the wood, pulp and paper industries. Uh. And you can
synthesize vanilin in a lab using an oil that's a
byproduct of the petroleum industry. Those last two are considered artificial,
(14:26):
and the petroleum version is the cheapest of the lot
by far. Especially since wooden paper industries have been working
to reduce waste over the past couple decades. Um. I
was reading ahead in the outline, and I'm very glad.
I was hoping that you would answer this question. Okay, alright, So,
so I heard that the artificial stuff is made from
(14:49):
beaver butt glands. Is that true? Is it? No? Well
there you go. Well, okay, well, it is true that
beavers produce a kind of vanilla scented substance in a
gland near the base of your tails. But believe it
or not, it's not actually financially viable to milk beaver
glands at a rate that would satisfy the world's interesting flavoring.
I know, weird them. This This stuff is called castoreum,
(15:15):
and beavers use it to mark their territory and to
impress humans by smelling just absolutely lovely. Beaver smell really nice.
I had no idea me neither. Castorium did see some
used in the eighteen hundreds as a perfume ingredient and
occasional food additive, especially during the time when beaver fur
was just all the rage in fashion, and so they
(15:35):
were thus being hunted in large numbers and It does
still show up sometimes in the fragrance industry, but it's
pretty uncommon. Well, there you go, question answered. I'm sure
all of you are waiting to know. Yes, in ice cream,
which actually does play a big part in the story
of vanilla, apart from the silly pole we wanted to
throw in there. Um, tastesters can tell the difference between
(15:58):
vanilla and vanilla the form are being more distinct and
flavorful than the ladder, which often ended up with the
descriptor bland or non distinct attached to it. However, and
things like cakes that are heated, tasters generally couldn't tell
the difference. Yeah. Oh, and I did want to put
in here that vanilla ice cream is one of the
few products here in the US that the FDA says
(16:19):
must contain natural vanilla if it doesn't want to have
to specify artificial vanilla and its name. I was at
the grocery store today and I noticed this, and also
so many things claiming to have flex of vanilla beans
in there. Anyway, Uh, the US, with our notorious sweet tooth,
is the largest importer of vanilla. On average five point
(16:41):
four grahams a person which comes out to sixty eight
million vanilla beans a year. Yeah, okay, so that's a lot.
That's the intro. Yeah, oh welcome. This is one of
those long and twisty outlines that it's like, oh goodness,
you never know, we're not I will take you. Yeah, well,
except we do know where it's going to take us. Well,
(17:01):
first of all, because we wrote it. And second of
all because right now it's taking us towards a quick
break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Thank you sponsored. All right, well, let's let's look at
(17:24):
the history of vanilla. It's it's hard to pin down.
It's a difficult one. Yeah, because vanillan does not leave
behind a chemical residue like chocolate does. Thank you chocolate. Um.
That being said, here's what historians have pieced together about
vanilla's history. So, the Maya in the southeast of Mexico
(17:44):
and Central America were the first to grow vanilla for
use as a cacao flavoring as as far back as
six thousand BC. That's mostly for for cocoa as a
drink sweetened with honey, and researchers think that vanilla was
originally reserved for people of very high political position. They
(18:05):
put ground up vanilla orchid and necklaces to ward off
illness or other bad health stuff. They used it as
a fragrance, stimulant and insector pill in a medicine, mixed
it with copal resin and burned it as an incense,
and of course in aphrodisiac obviously obviously. However, the Totonac
people in Vera Cruz, Mexico are often cited as the
(18:25):
first to cultivate banilla beans and to figure out that
they became more flavorful when sweated, primarily for medicinal use.
When the Aztecs took over the Totonac in the fifteenth century,
the Totenac were forced to pay tribute to the Aztecs
in the form of thousands and thousands of vanilla beans,
which they called black flower after what happens to the
(18:47):
flower once the fruit is harvested. Unlike the Totenknak, the
Aztec used vanilla for flavor, especially in the chocolate drink
that they called chuckle Attle. Did I say that correctly?
I think so saw it. The Totana believed that vanilla
was a gift from the gods and a source of
eternal happiness. Their mythology included the tale of how the
(19:09):
vanilla or kid came to be That go something like this.
Once about the time Princess Donut fell head over heels
in love. Her father refused to allow her allow her
to marry said love, however, on accounts of him being
a puny mortal, so the couple eloped. No nattier not
good because they both were captured in Their heads were
(19:31):
chopped clean off, their blood soaked into the earth, and
from that spot grew the first vanilla orchid. The Tota
saw it as their duty to take care of and
protect these vines and to make them productive through the
marriage of vanilla, which is a more pleasant way of
saying collination. That's a lovely myth. Yeah, well, I mean,
(19:52):
I mean there's heads getting chopped off. I mean, not
for the two people involved, but it's sort of sweet, yeah, yeah,
kind of. When this banish arrived in fifteen nineteen, frequent
food stuff cameo. Hernan Cortez ran into it at Vera Cruz,
and he also ran into the Totonac. Some sources say
that Montezuma served Cortez Cacao in fifteen twenty, while others
(20:14):
say that the Totonac teamed up the Spanish to overthrow
the Aztecs. Either way, Vanilla's name comes from Spanish vanilla,
which translates to little pod or in Latin vagina. There's
actually a lot of references to vagina, including the nine months,
the possible nine months it takes. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, well
(20:36):
I think they come back to that, okay, perfect um.
Around this time, vanilla was introduced to Asia and Africa
courtesy of the Spanish and Portuguese. And by introduced to
we almost certainly mean smuggled out to because yeah, a
lot of the Mexican people were trying to keep a
lockdown on that kind of thing. Yes, they absolutely were.
(20:57):
Cortez brought vanilla back with him to Europe, and in Teene,
the first written description of vanilla was pinned by Bernardino
de Sahagun and Bernard Diaz. Europeans were totally into adding
vanilla in to hot chocolate as a replacement for cinnamon
once they accepted hot chocolate, which did take a minute. Yeah,
one Spanish fellow dubbed it a drink for pigs. Oh,
(21:19):
I know, it's just hot chocolate. That's such strong emotion.
They also mixed it with tobacco, and you say it
as a nurse stimulant and surprise and apphronusiac. Some historians
think partly due to the vagina Latin root word, which
is the saddest reason ever to use something as an appronusiac. Yeah, well,
I guess it's not the satis reason. Never, it's not
(21:39):
a great reason. It's not very well founded. In sixteen
o two, with hopes of appeasing Queen Elizabeth, the first
sweet tooth, her apothecary and head of the apothecary, Hugh Morgan,
came up with sweetmeats flavored solely with vanilla. Queen Elizabeth
I loved, which meant that other people wanted to try them,
(22:02):
which led to vanilla spreading throughout Europe. Alcoholic beverages, tobacco,
and perfumes got the vanilla treatment in seventeen hundreds. In
seventeen fifty four we get the first recorded use of
the word vanilla from botanist Philip Miller's book The Gardener's Dictionary.
A little less than ten years later, in seventeen sixty two,
a German physician named Bazaar Zimmerman published a work that
(22:25):
claimed that after a three and forty two impotent men
drank vanilla, they quote changed into astonishing lovers of at
least as many women. M hmm, interesting study. Yeah, it
was so popular as an aphrodisiac. It's it was like
the one for a long time, you know. That's also
(22:46):
if we were kind of plotting a food stuff bingo
card and uh oh yeah, and I think aphrodisiac has
to be on there. Absolutely does. Around eighteen hundred, a
French priest smuggled an orchid out of Mexico, Yes, smuggle intrigue.
Spanish controlled Nextico had a monopoly on vanilla and the
plants were under an export ban, but this guy got
(23:08):
him out to Tahiti and from there the French would
try to cultivate them in multiple locations throughout the Pacific
and Indian oceans. Vanilla intrigue. And this brings us to
someone else who makes a frequent cameo and food stuff episodes.
But first, one last break for a word from our sponsor.
(23:36):
Then we're back. Thank you sponsoring. Yes, so you'll never
guess who's coming up again. Oh you probably will. It's
Thomas Jefferson. Oh yeah, yep, and his mini galivants across France,
he encountered ice cream flavored with vanilla, which had by
then spread to much of Europe with the help of
Queen Elizabeth the First. Jefferson loved the stuff so much
(23:56):
he even wrote down a recipe for vanilla ice cream
fairly similar to how we make it today that you
can find in the library of congress Man Jefferson brought
back waffles and vanilla ice cream and wine jellies from France.
He's I like, despite a number of other things, I
would have totally gone to his parties, like a waffle
(24:16):
for all, like with vanilla ice cream on the side
and some wine jellies to help you loosen up a bit. Yeah,
that's a lot of sugar, but it'd be fun at first. Yes,
you know, he didn't have Netflix back then. You had
to make your own fun. It's true. Also, he got
the pods from Paris, but they probably originally came from
Central America. So yeah. In eighteen o five, Vanilla pops
(24:39):
up and its first cookbook, and it's one we've talked
about before, Hannah Glasses, the odch of Cookery. It basically
called for adding vanilla to hot chocolate and if you're
seeing a theme here, vanilla and chocolate, vanilla and hot chocolate.
It was used to cut like the bitterness, right right, Yeah.
It was a popular way to cut the bitterness without
needing to add too much sugar exactly, which was expensive.
Right U. Another cookbook we've mentioned, Mary Randolph's eighteen twenty four,
(25:03):
The Virgin Housewife. It's not the Virgin Housewife. It is
the Virginia Housewife. I just have a aphrodisiac on the brain.
It came with the first written American recipe for vanilla
ice cream, and Europeans, of course for attempting to grow
their own vanilla, but they found the seeds they produced
weren't flavorful due to the totonac successfully keeping the process
(25:24):
of curing a secret, and also because the bee needed
for vanilla pollination could be found in Europe, or at
least the bee we think needed for vanilla poll nation um.
Europe's increasing demand for vanilla, which they nicknamed chocolate drug,
caused a depletion of wild vanilla, and as a result,
the total Na built vanilla farms in the seventeen sixties.
(25:44):
All of these things allowed them to maintain their position
as the primary producer of vanilla. From the seventeen sixties
to the eighteen forties. Europeans were determined, however, to find
a way to cultivate their own flavorful of vanilla. In
eighteen nineteen, some Frenchmen sent vanilla beans to the French
controlled Reunion on and Mauritius Islands, crossing their fingers would
go there. Years later, in forty one, on the island
(26:06):
of Reunion, twelve year old slave Edmund Albius figured out
hand pollination. Jean Michel Claude Richard, a famous French botanist,
immediately to credit immediately for teaching Albius this method of uh,
and in later recountings of the story some papers claimed
Albius was white. When slavory was abolished in eighteen forty eight,
(26:32):
an impoverished Albius died soon after, so he didn't make
any money off of what was basically like the invention
that made vanilla possible. Right. This also means that possibly
most of our vanilla supply can be traced back to
that first cutting of a vanilla orchid from Paris's Jordan
(26:52):
d plant, possibly which is cool to think. The discovery
of hand poll nation was the catalyst. First several things. First,
it toppled Mexico's monopoly of the vanilla trade. Second, the
French sent vanilla orchids, first to the Comoros Islands and
then to Madagascar with instructions and how to cultivate them.
(27:12):
The production of vanilla in these locations sailed past Mexico's
by eighteen seventy nine, and it only took until eighteen
ninety eight for them to supply of the world's vanilla
two hundred metric tons worth. There were other factors that
contributed to Mexico's loss of their lead in the trade.
Around that time, its coastal rainforests were being stripped bare
(27:32):
by the tropical wood industry. A cedar and mahogany trees
were part of vanilla orchids natural climbing habitat, and suddenly
all that was gone. Yeah, and this just so happened
to coincide with an exponential increase in demand for vanilla
as its solidified its place as the preferred ice cream flavor,
and with the eight six introduction of a little beverage
(27:54):
you might have heard of, Coca cola. What it's part
of that secret recipe it is, it's one of the
few things so is cinnamon. Uh one of the few
things that they will admit is in there. Yep. The
esteemed brain tonic and intellectual beverage called for vanilla. Vanilla
was added to all kinds of things as the availability
of it increased. Stepping back a bit, Joseph Burnett soaked
(28:19):
some vanilla beans and grain, alcohol and water in eighteen
forty seven and got vanilla extract, and German scientists isolated
the first synthetic vanilla that vanilla in eighteen seventy four
from cheaper sources like common Yeah. Sure, yeah whatever. Um.
In a case of too little, too late, the Academy
of Sciences and Gastronomic Arts recognized the total knock for
(28:43):
their role in bringing vanilla and the process behind cultivating
it to the world in oh, I mean yeah, they
did really good job keeping it hidden for a while. Um.
By some estimates, by the time Yo came around, of
all ice cream in the US was vanilla. Oh wow. Yeah.
(29:06):
A typhoon allowed to a substantial increase in vanilla's market
price in the seventies, a price level they maintained untild.
The cartel that had controlled vanilla's pricing and distribution of
vanilla since the nineteen thirties fell apart in n That
cartel was toppled by the International Monetary Fund and an
effort to boost global competition and vanilla intrigue. Indeed, prices
(29:30):
fell in the following years to twenty dollars a kilo
a se decrease. This changed when market factors like the
boom in premium ice creams by companies like Ben and
Jerry's and Hagandah's caused demand to increase some fifty pcent
from nineteen nine through two thousand. Uh. This was immediately
followed by another typhoon. Another typhoon struck in two thousand,
(29:55):
coupled with political instability and regions that grew vanilla and
bad weather in general. All this caused the price of
vanilla to shoot up to five hundred dollars sequilo and
two thousand four. By two five, the prizes back down
to forty dollars quilo due to a number of factors
like more countries trying their hand at vanilla production and
increased demand for imitation vanilla. But as you can see,
(30:18):
this is a product subject to some serious pricing fluctuation.
Oh yeah, and that's actually been particularly intense in the
past few years because the demand for artificial vanillen um
and also taxation of natural vanilla by the government was
so great during the nineteen nineties that orchid farmers in
Madagascar abandoned their plantations. Real vanilla was not worth the
(30:43):
cost of production to them. This happened in Mexico to
from the nineteen seventies on. Wages were so much higher
institutions and oil industries there that yeah, vanilla production just
did not make sense. That flipped when those big companies
like Nestlie started buying up pods again, as suddenly there
wasn't nearly enough supply to meet demand and the price skyrocketed,
especially because all those farms had shut down and it
(31:05):
can take three to five years for a new or
rebuilt production to start producing pods. This has created some
really bizarre economic effects. The National Central Bank of Madagascar
actually ran out of the large bills that vanilla traders
used to pay farmers, with crops being stolen from fields,
some farmers harvesting pods too early to produce good quality vanaa,
(31:28):
and weather is still an issue, especially given the rate
at which climate change is messing up our weather patterns. Uh.
Cyclone that had Madagascar this March destroyed about a third
of the vanilla crop, pushing demand and prices even higher.
All of this means that some researchers are working on
developing genetically modified orchids that would produce more vanilla to
(31:50):
help offset some of these fluctuations. And another interesting science thing,
Oh yeah, two thousands six study found that vanilla was
effective in preventing bacteria quorum sensing, which is something bacteria
do that coordinates behaviors like virulence and antibiotic resistance. So
(32:10):
scientists think that vanilla intake could be useful in preventing
bacterial pathogenesis. Yeah, very very very early, but still oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's coorum sensing is really fascinating. It's basically bacterial communication
and lots of great implications there. That is, it was
really cool to run into you. Like I said, you
never know what a topic is going to take you.
(32:31):
Who knew we'd be talking about bacteria coorum sensing in
vanilla episode? Not me, But that brings us to the
present with vanilla everywhere and all kinds of things and
our appetite for it apparently on ending. Yeah yeah, um
so that's the story of vanilla. It is. It is
quite a twisty turny one. Uh and kind of guys
(32:51):
probably know. But the reason that at the beginning of
the podcast why vanilla is like vanilla, bland and distinct
whatever is because it's it's everywhere, but also because it's
usually that invitation stuff or not right. We've got a
discussion with one of your friends about this, and he
had some strong feelings about how vanilla was very good
and not vanilla at all. Yeah, you gotta watch out
(33:15):
for cook industry. Food industry. Friends find they have opinions,
chefs have opinions. Sometimes it's weird, very weird. We have
arrived at the end of this classic episode. We hope
you enjoyed it. Yes, yeah, it's a it's a wild
ride full of slavery and better times than that. Yes, yes, yes,
(33:43):
whis true? Um and also other things like why does
vanilla mean bland? It can be so much more than that. Right,
let's let's you know we said it, then I'm going
to say it again. Let's bring back the word vanilla.
It shouldn't mean bland, and it should mean lovely and
rare and exciting and delicious. I think we can do this. Okay,
(34:07):
I think we can do this, but your help, listeners,
and if you want to email is about your efforts.
You can. Our email is Hello at savor pod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram, where our handle is at savor pod and
we do hope to hear from you. Savor is production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
(34:27):
you can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thank you
to our super producers Dylan Vegan and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots of
more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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