Vanilla:From Exotic to Bland

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The White Stuff

How vanilla became shorthand for bland.

By Amanda Fortini

Posted Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005, at 12:33 PM PT

 

Mr. Bean

http://www.slate.com/id/2124302/?GT1=6772

Vanilla has a PR problem. As a noun, vanilla refers to our most

fragrant and complex flavor, the one we use to improve everything

from cheesecake to chocolate. But as an adjective, it is a

pejorative, employed to describe anything common, generic, or bland.

We say "plain vanilla music" to indicate the mind-numbing elevator

variety and "plain vanilla sex" when speaking of humdrum missionary

style. When Prince Charles married his much-maligned sweetheart, a

British newspaper branded her "Plain Vanilla Camilla."

Somehow, "vanilla" has become shorthand for bland.

 

It wasn't always this way. For centuries, vanilla was considered

exotic, luxurious, and rare. In the 16th century, Hernando Cortes

brought vanilla beans from Mexico to Europe, and they became one of

the Spanish empire's most profitable commodities. Vanilla soon caught

on among the European elite; Queen Elizabeth, an inveterate sugar

addict, indulged daily in vanilla-infused pastries prepared by her

chef. Even 50 years ago, vanilla still connoted "the very essence of

zest and flavor," as William Safire once wrote: At soda parlors,

counter boys hollered, "Vanilla!" to alert kitchen workers to an

attractive girl. Where, then, did the myth of plain vanilla come from?

 

Vanilla's lackluster reputation stems in part from its particular

history in America, where most people initially encountered it as a

flavoring for ice cream. According to Patricia Rain, author of

Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World's Favorite Flavor and

Fragrance, vanilla was first brought to America by Thomas Jefferson

in the late 18th century. He had sampled vanilla sweets in France and

later imported beans to make vanilla ice cream. (His recipe can be

found with his papers at the Library of Congress.) The flavor, novel

for its aromatic intensity, quickly became popular. Ice cream had

previously been flavored with fruit or nuts (and, occasionally, with

unexpected foods like brown bread), so this colorless, lumpless

incarnation would have seemed plain by comparison, writes Rain.

Today, the many candied and cookied ice cream flavors that use

vanilla as a base reinforce the notion that vanilla is basic: merely

the starting point for flavor, not flavor itself.

 

Several developments in the past two decades have also done much to

alter vanilla's status. The explosion of low-fat and low-carb

products has created a need for strong flavors to render these foods

remotely appetizing, and the flavoring industry has determined that

vanilla, despite its supposed blandness, is a consistent favorite.

And so vanilla has become the Zelig of the processed-food world,

appearing in everything from Nilla Wafers to Absolut Vodka: ice

cream, sorbet, yogurt, cookies, cakes, cream soda, colas, root beer,

Frappuccinos, granola, protein powders, chocolate, malt liquor, and

breath mints. After a 1991 study conducted at Manhattan's Memorial

Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center revealed that a vanillalike fragrance

reduced stress among patients undergoing MRI scans, vanilla-scented

candles, incense, body lotion, shampoo, and air fresheners also began

to proliferate. It may be that we are now experiencing vanilla

fatigue, that our olfactory glands have become immune to the aroma.

Perhaps vanilla seems common and ordinary because—these days, anyway—

it is.

 

But the vanilla that wearies us is rarely vanilla at all. Anywhere

from 90 percent to 97 percent of vanilla-flavored products are made

with vanillin, a substance found in small quantities in natural

vanilla but made synthetically for processed commercial foods. Real

vanilla contains hundreds of different components that contribute to

its nuanced taste and aroma. It is as different from vanillin as

sugar is from Equal; vanilla possesses subtlety and depth, while

vanillin is loud, brassy, superficial. And yet most Americans have

become accustomed to the latter. Many actually prefer it. Food

manufacturers thus have little incentive to choose real vanilla:

Using pure vanilla extract costs American ice cream manufacturers

approximately 73 cents a gallon of ice cream, as opposed to 12 cents

a gallon for extract made from vanillin, Tim Ecott writes in Vanilla:

Travels in Search of the Ice Cream Orchid. It is primarily premium

food products that contain pure vanilla—as well as, surprisingly,

Coca-Cola, which industry insiders say contains the real thing.

(Perhaps this is the meaning behind Coke's slogan.)

 

Real vanilla, as the makers of Coke understand, gives foods a certain

je ne sais quoi. Its rich, multifaceted flavor derives in part from

the careful hand-rearing the beans receive. The orchid that produces

the pods is something of a diva, making vanilla one of the world's

most labor-intensive crops. The finicky plant likes damp heat, steady

rainfall, and a delicate balance of sunshine and shade. It takes its

time—around two to three years—to produce an odorless, pale yellow

flower that, unless pollinated, dies within hours. Pollination

requires artificial insemination, a manual transfer of pollen from

the male anther to the female stigma. (In Mexico, where vanilla

originated, an indigenous bee pollinated the flowers; vanilla could

not be grown elsewhere until a slave boy on the island of Reunion

discovered how to pollinate the orchid in 1841.) The seed pods, like

human children, take nine months to develop. But the green, string-

beanlike pods become dark brown and fragrant only after a curing

process that takes several months, a kind of spa treatment for

vanilla beans. According to Rain, the pods are "wrapped in clothes

and stored in boxes for hours to days, massaged, manipulated, laid in

the sun to dry each morning and brought in to rest each evening." The

entire cultivation process can take up to five years. Most of the

world's vanilla is grown in Madagascar, Indonesia, Mexico, and

Tahiti, where climate is right and land plentiful. Total production

is small, around 2,000 metric tons a year, with demand historically

exceeding supply. It's no wonder that vanilla is one of the most

expensive spices in the world. In 2004, vanilla prices peaked at

$500/kilo.

 

Of course, there are some who will demand real vanilla at any price.

This has been especially true in the past 20 or so years, as

consumers have grown wary of artificial additives and flavorings.

Many now seek out quality products that use real vanilla and are

willing to shell out for them. Professional chefs, too, have been

using more vanilla—in the late '80s, it became a trendy addition to

savory dishes after Wolfgang Puck famously paired lobster with

vanilla sauce at Spago. Now, vanilla is a standard complement to fish

or pork.

 

Since I had cooked only with vanilla extract, I decided to give the

beans a try. I bought two dark, oily pods for $9.99 at Whole Foods

and made Patricia Rain's Vanilla Bean Rice, slicing the bean

lengthwise and scraping the thousands of tiny, flavorful seeds into

the saucepan. The smell of the rice was overpowering; I could have

used it as an air freshener for my apartment, but it was far too

fragrant to eat. And suddenly I had a vanilla epiphany. The rice, a

truly bland food, forced the vanilla to take center stage. But

vanilla is essentially a supporting actor. It is a sociable flavor,

at its best when bringing out the best in other distinct ingredients,

softening their acidity, drawing out their intensity, helping them to

cohere. This is why baked goods made without vanilla lack depth and

dimension, like music without a bass line. And it also explains why

we associate vanilla with all things plain: Because vanilla rarely

owns the spotlight, we've come to think of it as the wallflower of

flavors, retiring and easily overlooked. Of course, like many

wallflowers, vanilla has a lot going for it. It's at once simple but

sophisticated, familiar yet mysterious—and not at all bland.