Vanilla

A dark pod, Vanilla planifolia, the seed (not a bean, as it's often described) of a vine from the orchid family. Vanilla is native to the tropical rain forests of southeastern Mexico and Central America. Once it's picked, the pod is instantly dipped into boiling water to stop its growth and then placed in the sun to "sweat" for 10 to 20 days. Curing takes six to nine months, the process creating an enzyme reaction that changes glucovanillin to vanillin, the substance that gives the pods their characteristic flavor and aroma. While they cure, they must be kept warm. They eventually brown, become pliable, and develop a fine, white crystalline coating of vanillin. The most highly prized is Mexican vanilla, and second is Madagascar or Bourbon vanilla. Guyana, Guadeloupe and Martinique also produce the pods. More than 75 percent of all vanilla is grown in Madagascar and Reunion, where the pods are actually marked with the grower's brand to prevent vanilla rustlers from stealing the crops.

The name comes from the Spanish vainilla, meaning "little scabbard." Before the Europeans found it, vanilla had long been used by the Aztecs to flavor a drink called xocalatl, made with crushed cacao beans. Montezuma offered it to Hernán Ferdinand Cortés and his men when they reached what is now Mexico City. Bernardino de Sahagun, a Franciscan monk, was the first European to convey interest in vanilla in his 1560 book Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España (General History of the Things of New Spain), which gave us the story xocalatl. The reason that real vanilla is so expensive is because it's hand-pollinated. Between 1875 and 1925, artificial vanillin was chemically synthesized from the essential oil of cloves, and recently, it's been made from the lignin of wood wastes. However, by U.S. law, any product labeled "vanilla extract" must derive from true vanilla.

---