Bean Around the World

Vanilla’s unique potency

As I write this, it’s been raining for three days straight and it feels like tomorrow morning even the colour in the trees and grass is going to be washed away. Everything grey, top to bottom. No, I’m not about to sound another tiresome bemoaning of the long dreary Victoria fall/winter setting in. The season just requires a change in attitude, is all I’m getting at. Windows stay shut, fires stay burning, porches go unused and an aspect of the home changes from prospect to refuge. If it’s going to be dark outside all the time then I’m going to do what I can to make it a little brighter inside.

Which brings me to the two vanilla beans I’ve got in a slender jar on my counter. I almost never buy vanilla in its pure form, choosing, like most North Americans, to work with the convenience of the extract. But a few months back a friend of mine received the gift of a single vanilla bean for his birthday. The narrow brown pod was folded in two and tucked into a clear narrow container. It seemed to me that the gift of vanilla carried with it—in a way that few seasonings do—a pronounced and elegant reminder of its tropical origins. That is to say, I coveted my neighbour’s bean.

After saffron, vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world. It’s the seed pod of a climbing orchid—indigenous to South and Central America—whose flower must be hand-pollinated, picked and cured on a very exact schedule. But cost isn’t everything; I don’t think a tin of saffron cuts it as a gift quite the way a vanilla bean does. Vanilla has a unique potency and a mysterious and intriguing appearance. The long withered body of the bean looks something like the severed finger of a spider monkey (which is also very delicious). It’s pliable and heavy with its own oils. The fragrance is considerably different from the alcoholic extract, nothing harsh—all smooth, warm and complex. It’s ironic that “vanilla” in some parlance connotes blandness.

So the day after my friend received one for his birthday I toodled off and bought myself my very own vanilla bean, but I haven’t had the heart to cook with it. The satisfaction I gain from just prying back the lid on the jar and putting my nose to the opening prevents me from using it up. The heady scent is its own reward. No wonder there’s such a plethora of skin and soap products that add a layer of pampering to their product with a measure of vanilla. The aroma transports us. In the words of Diane Ackerman, it gives the room the stature of an exotic crossroads.

In the mythology of the Totonac people on Mexico’s Gulf Coast—vanilla’s first cultivators—the origins of vanilla are caught up in a Romeo and Juliet-like story of two lovers—forbidden to be together—who escape to the jungle only to be caught and beheaded by her (exceptionally angry) father. When their blood fell into the fertile jungle soil the first tendrils of the vanilla plant came creeping forwards. Sexy, eh? The connection wasn’t lost on Europeans once vanilla was imported from the old world. Alan Davidson, in his Oxford Companion to Food, quotes an 18th century German source on the subject of vanilla and the libido: “342 impotent men have changed into astonishing lovers of at least as many woman.” Sold yet?

At the grocery store where I paid 10 dollars for two Madagascar-grown beans, the woman who rang me through wondered what I was going to do with these exotic items. She had a tip: throw one into a bottle of vodka and let it sit for six months. “Which makes for an awesome drink down the road,” she said. Her idea is essentially the recipe for vanilla extract (see below) and speaks to the ease with which the essence of vanilla can be parted from its pod.

A word on artificial versus natural extract: while vanillin is the primary compound that gives vanilla its signature, artificial vanillin (normally synthesized from chemical by-products of paper making) lacks the many hundreds of other compounds found in the natural source. That simplification in the laboratory results in a much less interesting taste on the palate. Natural extract is more expensive, yes, but broken down on a per-use basis you’re likely only paying a few cents more per recipe.

That’s if you’re even going to cook with it, of course. For myself, I’ll just keep sniffing this unadulterated narcotic until the cherry blossoms line View Street. M

Two simple uses for vanilla beans

(excerpted from Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses, Knopf, $21)

To make real vanilla extract: split a vanilla bean lengthwise, set in a glass jar, cover with ¾ cup of vodka. Cover and let steep for at least six weeks. As you use the extract, add more vodka; the bean will stay redolent and continue oozing flavour for some time.

Vanilla sugar tastes wonderful in coffee. Split one vanilla bean from top to bottom and cut into pieces; mix with two cups sugar; cover; let stand for six weeks. The longer the vanilla stands, the more intense the flavour.